The debut album from guitarist
Idan Morim, 2019's
I.M., is an atmospheric production that showcases the Israeli-born/New York-based jazz musician's nuanced and fluid fretboard style. Joining
Morim are his equally adept quintet bandmates trumpeter
Adam O'Farrill, pianist Micha Gilad, bassist Almog Sharvit, and drummer
Colin Stranahan. Each of these players are established artists in their own right and play with a similarly engaging balance of harmonic intellectualism and visceral group sonority. It's a style that evokes the expansive work of guitarists like
Pat Martino,
Bill Frisell, and
Pat Metheny. The album title, a play on both
Morim's initials and the phrase "I Am," brings to mind a philosophical search for the self and one's place in the world. Fittingly, the opening "But I" is a languid, slow-burning piece in which
Morim layers his bluesy, far-eyed electric guitar lines against a slow-burn caravan groove. Conversely, "Coleoptera" is a spinning song 3/4 sophistication, built around
O'Farrill's angular trumpet playing that brings to mind the work of the late British trumpeter
Kenny Wheeler. Equally evocative, "As If (It Was All a Dream)" with its minor- key bassline sounds like background music to a '70s detective noir show like Rockford Files. Similarly expressive, "Wildfire" finds
Morim's spinning, light-dappled guitar lines around
O'Farrill's Harmon-muted horn and
Sharvit's darkly bowed basslines. Elsewhere, the guitarist crosses classical impressionism with a sensually deconstructed tango rhythm on his three-part "Movement," and conjures images of an epic sea voyage on the closing "I Know My Rights." That latter track, as with much of
I.M., has a cinematic arc that starts softly as
Morim pulls you to the horizon, holding you in rich harmonic swells before crashing into the rocky surf below. ~ Matt Collar