– THE MILITARY COUP –

I’ve long held the opinion that Derrick Hodge is the kind of man who doesn’t eat his pizza crusts.

A veteran of the jazz scene, the bassist is best known for his work with Common and Robert Glasper. Except that he’s not that well known. The perennial ‘quiet man’, his playing has always been remarkable for being unremarkable; solid, if unspectacular. His approach, therefore, is not to faff around with the unimportant stuff – to just include the best bits.

Hence my theory on his pizza-eating habits. Despite clearly being the least important part of said culinary dish, some of us slavishly eat the crusts out of some sort of duty to the pizza or God or whatever. For those who can’t be arsed with all the faff… well, they’d like Derrick Hodge’s bass playing.

All of which makes Color of Noize stand out in Hodge’s cannon. For here is a song – the title track of his latest record, no less – that is all extravagance.

Everything’s unnecessary.

And it’s bloody beautiful.

I love the machine-gun drumming, powering its way underneath the ever-more dramatic chord sequences. I love the way it doesn’t let up. I bloody love Derrick Hodge and his newfound lack of nuance.

And most of all, I bloody love a bit of pizza crust.

If you like this try my review of Levitation 21 by Tigran Hamasyan.

COLOR OF NOIZE is out now through Capitol Records.

HEAR MORE HERE

CHIP WICKHAM: ROUTE ONE
LIV.E: LESSONS FROM MY MISTAKES… BUT I LOST YOUR NUMBER
OTIS SANDSJÖ: TREMENDOCE
KEPLER IS FREE: CLUSTER 3

CEASE-FIRE

You can find all of the tracks reviewed above in the 45 Revolutions per Minute playlist below or click to access the Future Jazz Playlist on Spotify itself.

If you like what you hear (or even if you don’t), please engage in dialogue with me @45rpm_Reviews on Twitter. And, if you’d like to receive updates weekly, please subscribe to the email list to get these recommendations sent to your inbox weekly.

Until next time, love and noise.

– SV –