by Felipe Freitas, Jazz Trail
American trumpeter/composer/bandleader Brian Lynch, a Grammy award winning artist, has brought a new burning charisma to the Latin jazz genre, raising consciousness through a colorful consolidation of diverse musical cultures. His double-disc big band album, The Omni-American Book Club, was inspired by literature and features noteworthy guests such as drummer Dafnis Prieto, flutist Orlando ‘Maraca’ Valle, violinist Regina Carter, and saxophonists David Liebman, Jim Snidero, and Donald Harrison. The latter completely kills on the smoothly funkified, R&B-flavored “The Struggle Is In Your Name”, where he exchanges heated phrases with the bandleader. Regularly disrupting the swinging rides with Afro-Caribbean passages, Lynch still has time to pay tributes to late saxophonist Blue Mitchell and trumpeter Woody Shaw. One of my favorite pieces is “Africa My Land”, an heroic adventure in six, where the baritone saxophone grooves beyond the lush horn-driven sections. [B+]