Bil Sabab Power Hour: Dizzy Gillespie - Matrix

"Matrix" is a composition written by Mike Longo and performed by jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. It was released in 1970 on an album titled "The Real Thing". This is one of the coolest sounding compositions in the history of mankind. For real. It is so cool you can't believe a piece of music can reach such levels of cool. Things can't get any cooler than that. It is smooth, sliding, confident, sharp dressed sonic equivalent of styling, profiling and chilling and swaying in the murky, smoky space of boom boom boom. Makes no sense but it is what it is. It warps the fabric of reality, turns it upside down and inside out and makes it revel backwards. That is how good it is.

Late 60s - early 70s were strange days for Mr. Gillespie. He was fresh off his semi-serious political campaigns and his reputation as an artist was rapidly moving towards elder statesman status. But he didn't wanted to go on like that. He was in a weird place as an artist. He was stuck. He had nothing to prove and he could do anything he wanted. And that felt a bit off for him. So he decided to shake things up. He moved to Perception Records and slightly upgraded his sound with some modern flavors. He sponged everything that was hanging in air at that time and forged his own thing out of it with a bliss.

Stylistically "Matrix" stands on the crossroads between old-school cool jazz and emerging jazz fusion with latin-tinged funk grooves. This combination might seem too much but it never really sounds like a Frankenstein monster. It sounds unexpectedly natural. Unlike the other composition from that perioud "Matrix" finds a perfect balance between rethreading and exploration. It takes a little bit of this and little bit of that - then flips it and reverses it.

"Matrix" revolves around a simple motif but never really delves into numb repetition - every next turn goes through differently. The groove takes a cirles than zigzags a bit and makes another circle and then starts to circle around zigzagging. It rounds up with another repeat but then things take a pause and move in a different direction. Trumpet solo is thin and slick. It moves through the debris of the arrangement elegantly avoiding touching any surfaces. Then trumpet collides with another trumpet and exchange a few phrases. Things go back to the central motif - move around a little and then comes double trumpet fuss. One of them wails while the other jumps around ecstatic. Then the whole arrangement goes away while the trumpet lines tangle and choke. It is very comedic coda.