Though tenor sax virtuoso Chris Potter has doubled on other horns since the ’90s and embraced electric jazz head-on with his Underground quartet in the ’00s, Sunrise Reprise and its 2019 predecessor, Circuits, involve new sonic and compositional departures. Reuniting with keyboardist James Francies and drummer Eric Harland, Potter leads a trio incarnation of a group that originally included Paris-based electric bassist Linley Marthe. Francies, in addition to his bracing improvised solos, covers the low end with fat keyboard bass, while Potter creates layers of sound with tenor and soprano sax, clarinets, and flutes as well as sampler and keyboards to supplement Francies’ otherworldly textures and tones. In the harmonic dreamscapes of “Sunrise and Joshua Trees,” the subtle groove of “Southbound,” the rhythmic agitation and stunning melodic intricacy of “Serpentine,” the pastoral blend of tenor and acoustic piano on “The Peanut,” and the sheer endurance of the closing 24-minute epic, “Nowhere, Now Here/Sunrise Reprise,” we hear an artist breaking boundaries, imbuing tight compositional structures with a sense of imperfection and risk.
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