Infinite Darkness Quartet...

Now we turn the spotlight on a powerhouse of modern jazz emanations, Providence's very own Infinite Darkness Quartet. Playing together for roughly four years, the group turns out collective improvisation on their own compositions and are committed to the idea of pushing the art of jazz ahead.
The group is comprised of Alex Chapman on drums, Tom Casale on upright bass, Tony Cabral on keyboard, and Mike Bernier on guitar. Everyone is from Rhode Island except Tony, who is from the Boston area. So, this group is comprised of homegrown New England boys.
These gentlemen are all at the top of their game. Both their knowledge of the idiom and their eclectic tastes are on display in full form in each track. As we are dealing with a group of jazzers schooled in the late twentieth century, the influence of rock and pop on their collective sensibility is at times quite apparent, and lends a refreshing character to the music.
As far as I know, they are all in their late twenties to early thirties, which enhances the sense of dedication they bring to the group. Their maturity and sensitivity to the demands of high end improvisation becomes apparent as each track unfolds. The way they react to one another and the tone set by each soloist is richly imbued by the flavor of whichever song is floating through the air. The tunes come to life, and you realize that you are in the presence of something truly profound.
In some ways, to me at least, the group is something of a throwback. Their elastic sense of time and Alex's timekeeping aesthetic calls to mind Miles' "second" big group, the one with Tony Williams and Wayne Shorter. However, the similarity extends only so far, as these guys have carved out their own niche.
Tom Casale, the upright bass player, is the primary composer. His imagination is wideranging, as is evidenced by his arrangements of the Beatles' Michelle (here reharmonized as "Mitchell") and Alexander Borodin's "Gliding Dance of the Maidens" (here reharmonized as "Polovitzian Invasion"), both on the unreleased first album. From Liverpool to Russia, and these are the arrangements.
His originals breathe with a life all their own. As I said before, there is a definite element of rock and roll in the music these men make, and in Tom's hands it is another tool for expression. His use of vamps in the writing and his phrasing in relation to Alex's drumming have a strong sense of backbeat. On the "Needle and the Damage Done," the contrasting rhythmic styles between the repitition of the main melody and the subsequent break into the "swing" section is compelling. In the first part, tension mounts on tension like a rubber band and builds, as the ostinato-like comping is built from a couple of chords, and the arc of the melody somehow emphasizes the potentiality of the energy. When the vamp finally spills over into the next section, enough momentum has collected that the band literally explodes forward.
Also of particular note is their interest in expanding the tradition of playing standards. Like the Bad Plus, they are adept at taking contemporary rock and pop tunes and retooling them into compelling vehicles for spontaneity. On the unreleased first album they rework "Heart Shaped Box" into something else entirely, and Mike really lays into the chord changes with a fury. Check his tone on that track, and his seeming use of delay. The end result fuses traditions and goes somewhere else entirely.
To really get at what they are doing in this vein, check out their arrangement of "Knives Out" by Radiohead. It is surreal, absolutely their own invention.
What is interesting is how much they aren't like The Bad Plus at all, possessing a more dirty groove and a more pronounced backbeat in contrast to Ethan Iversons' post-Lisztian, chromatic scale, polyrhythmic freakout. IDQ, to me at least, sounds more prog rock to TBP's late Romantic deconstruction.
So, anyone interested in immersing themselves in a soundworld created by four highly masterful musicians reveling in each others association and in love with making the music they want should get behind this group in a big way. It just might change your life.

check em out at www.myspace.com/theinfinitedarknessquartet
and at www.idquartet.com