A beautiful new album release from Denman Maroney Quintet delivers a special breed of contemporary and improvisational jazz with gorgeous chunks of outside-the-box thinking and approaches that bleed into other genres and let the songs feel alive and breathing in their own way.
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare album is robust and experimental with avant-garde undertones and an absolutely mind-blowing piano performance throughout the entire record which is what Denman Maroney is most known for in the first place. His work on the keys.
These pieces of music are flowing and can at times be intense and almost haunting and it all depends on where you are during the album.
I definitely love how they do jazz undertone a lot of the time giving off a slightly vintage sound at times while at others, you get more of a sort of cinematic backbone.
Denman is not only known for his piano but he's also known for what is dubbed "hyperpiano" which is the technique where he plays keys with one hand and strings with the other using slides and bows of metal plastic or rubber.
Yes, you read that right and I've never even heard of it before now but it's really mind-boggling to think about.
You have to be some sort of ambidextrous to pull something like that off and I feel like it's something that I would love to see in person.
This album as a whole is done by his quintet of course, and you have some wonderful vocals that span a spectrum of different styles, you have saxophone and clarinet, and you have bass and drums along with the piano so the whole thing does come through sort of lush at times and the instrumentation all has beautiful ways of complimenting each other as the performance is let those instruments speak to each other in a way.
This was a compelling record that gives off a scattered but uniquely placed set of vibes and colors that all come together to create this album's worth of an atmosphere and so when you listen to this whole record you most likely won't come out of it the same.
This is very different, very experimental, incredibly fun, intriguing, and it exudes this wondrous level of musicianship in class that makes you want more and more.
By the time you get halfway through this record you begin to expect the unexpected and that's something I haven't seen for a while.
I was definitely suggest diving into this record and letting it swim around to the air that's around you.
I bet the effects of this record will hit you in a certain way.
It's more than worth your time to check out especially if you're an instrumentalist of any kind or a fan of classic jazz or improvisational music.
Take a deep dive into this record as soon as you can and do it with headphones on.
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