Entre Amigos

Joyful Foundation: The Music of Justin Copeland

Entre Amigos Record

Chicago-rooted ensemble Entre Amigos returns with their third effort, Joyful Foundation: The Music of Justin Copeland. We have covered their first two releases on these pages. On 2025’s Magpie: The Music of Joe Clark, the ensemble played Clark’s compositions on every track. Here, they invite trumpeter, composer, and educator Justin Copeland to join the ensemble, while splitting the repertoire between Copeland’s compositions and those from members of the ensemble: tenor saxophonist Roy McGrath, pianist Hana Fujisaki, bassist Kitt Lyles, and drummer Gustavo Cortinas. The core quartet becomes the classic jazz quintet, making their music far more deeply harmonic and breathing freely through rigorous interplay.

Copeland arrives with a glowing resume. In 2017, he won First Place in the Yamaha Jazz Division of the National Trumpet Competition and was selected as a finalist for the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Competition. In February 2020, Copeland was chosen as one of just thirty candidates worldwide to audition for the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz. Along the way, he had an eight-year tenure in the Chicago area, where he met and often collaborated with the band. Copeland has also performed with Victor Goines, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Branford Marsalis, Doc Severinsen, Solange Knowles, and Kurt Elling.

The opener, “Ride,” by Copeland, begins with a solo trumpet fanfare, soon morphing into vigorous counterpoint between him and McGrath, while the rhythm section plays a Baião rhythm. This palette is indicative of the rhythmic variety and the advanced harmonics that color Copeland’s writing. “Fleeting Magic” begins in a march-like cadence and pauses for Copeland’s full-toned lyrical entry, the piece alternating between those two sequences throughout. Pianist Fujisaki solos brilliantly. Midway through, Copeland becomes far more aggressive, followed by powerhouse McGrath, going beast mode on tenor, before a feisty contrapuntal dialogue ensues between the two, building to an explosive climax. The title track begins in a slow tempo with Copeland’s intro, but quickly locks into a steady but restrained hard bop groove, imbued by the interplay between the horns.  Copeland continues to improvise as the only soloist throughout the piece. “Remembrance” is an episodic composition that moves from a rubato introduction to improvisations in an open, oft funky context, with strong contributions from Cortinas, Lyles, and Fujisaki, while the horns play in tandem. Copeland surges, Fujisake is all over the keyboard, and the piece builds to a volcanic climax.

Fujisaki’s “Probability” is a blistering hard bop swinger, where every musician gets to stretch, with strong solos delivered across the board, propelled by Cortinas’s outstanding kit work. McGrath’s “Fue Nuestro” is a beautiful ballad, alternating between dark and bright colors, as each horn alternates the lead voice. Lyle’s “Several Clear Moments” is another of the swinging variety, rife with several changes. The closer, Cortiñas’s “Valley of 1000 Devils,” is further ‘out there’ than the others, a freer structure over which to improvise, while the drummer percolates underneath. Both McGrath and Copeland use more advanced blowing techniques in the course of the piece, joining for an inspired duo conversation.

This third installment is a major leap forward for the ensemble.  Adding the immensely talented Copeland, who makes the already vibrant quartet shine even more brightly.

• Jim Hynes

 

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