Brian Landrus

Just When You Think You Know

 BlueLand/Palmetto

We covered Brian Landrus’s brilliant 2022 environmentally focused concept album, Red List, on these pages. Now, with Just When You Think You Know, we don’t have a concept album per se, but something entirely new for Landrus just the same. Known primarily as a low-end player, specializing in baritone sax and bass clarinet, we here find Landrus commanding an arsenal that adds tenor sax, flute, alto flute, and bass flute to this palette. The title gives reference to such. Landrus also enlists an elite backing unit of pianist Zaccai Curtis, guitarist Dave Stryker, and his go-to rhythm team – bassist Lonnie Plaxico and drummer Rudy Royston. Landrus composed all fourteen pieces, arguably, his best exposition as a composer yet.

Most of the pieces are written specifically for this ensemble, although Landrum reached back for three pieces from 2002, a time when he was a sideman for oldies/pop-rock bands such as The Temptations, The Four Tops, and The Beach Boys. Finding that very unsatisfying, he enrolled in the master’s program at New England Conservatory. He has followed the jazz path since, garnering acclaim on the aforementioned instruments.

“All in Time,” the opener, marries the current difficult period Landrus has endured  – the passing of loved ones, breakups, and the betrayal of close friends with the dark period of those sideman days. Though the overall tone is melancholic, the blending of Stryker’s guitar with Curtis’s Rhodes and the funky bottom of the bass-drum tandem gives it buoyancy. Landrus begins the tune on tenor but moves to bass clarinet for a highly lyrical solo.  “Continuance” shifts to a bossa nova feel, Landrus’s flute paired with Stryker’s acoustic guitar, with Royston delivering marvelous chops on the kit. The mood shifts again for one of the three older pieces, the R&B groove of “Untold Story,” where he plays baritone sax. The second older piece, “Beyond,” with Landrus on tenor, carries Latin-tinged fusion, featuring Stryker.  The third, “Under Dark,” is airy, flute delivered over a funky rhythmic bed, characteristic of Landrus’s compositional style at the time.

Throughout the album, the direction keeps shifting. Lines intersect, diverge, and melt away. Forms from fusion to chamber music to big band/orchestral, even world music, all seem to emerge from this small combo. Some themes reappear through his different instruments, giving the project a rather curious cohesion. Landrus presents this not so much as a tour de force on his various instruments, but with tight, ensemble writing where each voice gets a say.

“One Year” has Curtis shining on acoustic piano with Landrus on tenor, later soloing on baritone, for a swinging hard bop piece, in the mold of ‘60s classic Blue Note.  Landrus devotes a respectful tribute on tenor to sax mouthpiece  maker Fred LeBayle, a close friend who passed in 2024, in “Dear Fred.”  The emotive “El Perro Sigma” nods to his missed pet, a chihuahua, beautifully rendered on alto and bass flutes.

“Averse’ is a mid-tempo, breezy fusion piece, with Landrus playing fluidly on the bass clarinet, over a steady rhythmic bed. While “Trance” may suggest a higher-register instrument such as a flute, which is employed, Landrus begins on baritone, shifting instruments over the course of the piece. “From the Night,” one of the shorter pieces, is spiritually hymn-like, showcasing Landrus’s mastery of the tenor and Curtis’s comping with dense chords.  A similar approach carries through the title track, imbued by Royston’s in-the-pocket drumming and cymbal work. By contrast, the Rhodes-tinged “Something Special” transports us into a spacey realm via the guitar and the leader’s breathy tenor. The flute imbued closer, “Paroxysm,” evokes a Chick Corea Return to Forever kind of fusion.

So, if you thought you had Brian Landrus pegged, he completely obliterates any prior conceptions with the well-crafted, diverse Just When You Think You Know.

• Jim Hynes

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