Eli Winter is Chicagoan by choice, and you know what they say about the seriousness of converts. The guitarist moved north from Houston partly to go to college at the University of Chicago, but also to get involved with a music scene he had already admired from afar. Mission accomplished. Not only does his fourth longplayer under his own name feature contributions by a full complement of past and present Chicagoans, its contents are shaped by successive iterations of the city’s musical aesthetics. A Trick Of The Light is music that learns from everything and feels no need to be pinned down.
Over time, Winter has gone from playing solo acoustic music to wielding an electric instrument and leading a band. (Full disclosure: I’m among the legion who are thanked in the record’s voluminous notes, presumably for having been around enough to observe the transition.)
A Trick Of The Light’s core members—pedal-steel guitarist Sam Wagster (Mute Duo, 60 Strings) and drummer Tyler Damon (Dave Rempis, Tashi Dorji, Circuit Des Yeux)—have been with Winter for a few years. They’re augmented by musicians who represent those different phases of Chicago sound. Former townie and fellow UChicago graduate David Grubbs (of 1990s explorers Gastr Del Sol) plays guitar on one track; tenor saxophonist Gerrit Hatcher (a staunch exponent of the DIY free-jazz scene) plays on two more; and bassist Andrew Scott Young (an enduring associate of 2010s songster Ryley Walker) appears on all six. And looking beyond the city’s limits, eminence grise Mike Watt is among the posse of players to guest on one track or another.
While the credit list is long, the music is uncluttered and intentional, and everyone is present for a reason. Winter’s compositions use cleanly picked patterns and expansive melodies that convey a sense of motion, and the players extend his reach. Wagster’s swooping lines focus eyes on the horizon, and Damon’s combustible shuffle tells you how you’ll get there. The guests add grit, grace and plenty of swing. While Winter is not a jazz player and this is not a jazz album, it’s open about its debts to both the folk-jazz vibe that Walker used to mine and the more melodic side of mid-20th-century free jazz without really sounding like either.
Winter goes out on a limb by playing two covers (Don Cherry’s “Arabian Nightingale” and Carla Bley’s “Ida Lupino”) whose pacing and complexity are quite different from his own material. Neither time does he saw the limb off. With Hatcher’s robust probing to the fore and Winter churning up the rhythm with satisfying grit, the former is by turns turbulent and spare, but always purposeful. Swooping string flourishes highlight the latter’s yearning melody, infusing it with radiant warmth. “Ida Lupino” is A Trick Of The Light’s center of gravity and the most emotionally resonant thing that Winter has made to date. [Three Lobed]
—Bill Meyer
