4 out of 5

Label: Astral Spirits / Monofonus Press

Produced by: Cooper Crain

It starts all no-wavey, with growling keys clattering into a freeform stumble of bass and drums; when you note that this jazz trio is out of Chicago, you’ll nod in approval. But Hearts & Minds quickly evolve past this stage, using their loose playing method to creep their sound towards lovely variants within the scene. While they never quite get as noisy and restless as they do on that opener, there’s plenty of Bablicon-esque squealy improv, and cinematic slink a la Denison-Kimball Trio, and then every-now-and-then surprises where you could be listening to some modern traditionalists, like Bad Plus. What makes this work is how unflashy it is, and also that the group isn’t either too spasmatic with stylistic shifts, but also not too rigid – we’ll stick with loose noodling and then a set, grooving beat emerges; we’ll stick in a cool and calm line for minutes at a time, and then fall apart. The laid back execution of this is reflected in the warm recording, which admittedly could’ve been mastered a bit louder but sounds nice and meaty – a friendly and familial affair. While the pluses of this approach are being outlined above, a downside of being all chill is that songs do seem to sometimes just end abruptly, like everyone got suddenly bored, or when it comes to the more linear works, go on for a bit too long without adding much. So a few extra degrees of structure may’ve helped.

But: Hearts & Minds otherwise prove capable of strutting along the different jazz paths – zipped up and straight; goofy and wild – and making it seem like it all just naturally belongs together.