Home Speaks to the Wandering

Album Review

Part of Boston's underground art jazz scene alongside the slightly older Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Twinemen, and other lesser-known groups, Dead Cat Bounce isn't out to intimidate or annoy its audiences. This sextet — a front line consisting of four saxophonists (Jared Sims and Matt Steckler double on clarinet and flute, respectively) plus a rhythm section — is as well-versed in Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus as it is The Art Ensemble of Chicago, and elements of swing and bop mingle easily with the freer and more out passages the group occasionally slip into. As a result, the artist that Home Speaks to the Wandering most closely resembles is Atlantic Records-era Rahsaan Roland Kirk, when the multi-instrumentalist was playfully mixing his stylistic metaphors out of the entire continuum of jazz history. Dead Cat Bounce doesn't have the complete freedom of Kirk at his peak, but this album is imbued with a similarly questing, open-hearted spirit.