Chad Taylor Quintet, Smoke Shifter Review

Chad Taylor Quintet: Textures in Motion in Smoke Shifter

By Nolan DeBuke

Chad Taylor’s Smoke Shifter is a modern jazz statement by an ensemble that knows exactly when to play and listen. Recorded at Samurai Hotel Recording in a single day, barely a take or two per tune, the s-x song album captures the quintet in full conversational flight. The performances trace a spectrum of rhythmic moods, contemporary harmonic language, and kinesthetic ensemble identity. Smoke Shifter is a record that rewards close listening by demonstrating how composition, improvisation, and timbre form a complete musical ecosystem.

Taylor has long been regarded as a structurally inventive drummer, and here he steps forward as a percussive architect to form the gravitational center of the ensemble. The ensemble is defined equally by trust and a common jazz language. Jonathan Finlayson’s agile trumpet, Bryan Rogers’ lyrical and incisive tenor saxophone, Victor Vieira-Branco’s vibraphone, and Matt Engle’s anchoring bass combine to create a modern quintet sound that is texturally and rhythmically creative.

The album opens with “Broken Horse,” and it’s an ideal beginning because it establishes the aesthetic premise of rhythm as terrain and counterpoint as propulsion. The interaction of bass lines, circular, firm, and charged, creates a hypnotic undercurrent that grounds the mood. The vibraphone’s pastel sheen softens the edges, giving the music a kind of brushed luminosity.

When the center-section arrives and the Taylor and Finlayson solo in tandem, the record’s defining characteristic becomes unmistakable. The conversational improvisation is a driving force on this album. The horns and rhythm section interweave, forming braided melodic strands that stretch outward and curve back toward the topic of the conversation. Taylor’s drumming layers parts into a composite pattern that grooves as a mosaic rather than a singular line. It’s a powerful opening statement of collective intention.

“Avian Shadow” shifts the palette into contemporary groove jazz with subtly interlocking pulses. The flow of the piece hinges on Taylor’s ability to move between textures, and the moment that best illuminates this is the transition from trumpet solo to saxophone solo.

Taylor deploys a full color palette, changing cymbal surface, redistributing rhythmic weight, and sculpting a new environment for Rogers before he even enters. The textures intertwine, accumulate, and rise toward a climax before settling back into the groove. This is an excellent illustration of contemporary ensemble shape-building. The band members breathe as a unit, adjusting density and energy with remarkable naturalness.

A contemporary jazz ballad in three, “Waltz for Meghan,” reveals the ensemble’s quieter virtues. The melody is disarmingly engaging—direct yet harmonically nuanced—and Engle’s bass solo becomes the emotional hinge of the track, unfolding with shaped contours and subtle motivic development. His lines feel sung as much as played.

Vieira-Branco’s vibraphone colors the space with rhythmic accents and soft, hovering tones, adding a gentle iridescence to the harmonic field. Taylor’s contribution is essential to the feel, acting as an ever-present pulse that moves the feel through each section and anchors the transitions.

The title track reorients the album’s energy with a contemporary jazz composition inflected by Latin rhythmic sensibilities. Rather than leaning on genre tropes, the piece uses Latin motion as a structural engine that powers the melody and improvisational development.

Vieira-Branco’s solo here is a standout: energetic, fluid, and strikingly musical. His approach balances crisp articulation with sweeping phrases, allowing him to thread lines through the rhythmic grid with both precision and freedom. Taylor and Engle keep the groove while feeding momentum without overstatement.

“October 26th” steps into a more spacious, introspective world. The ballad carries unmistakable European jazz overtones with open harmonies, expansive time feel, and a sense of narrative unfolding. The performance grows gradually into a collective improvisation, each voice entering not as a soloist but as part of a slow-rising tide.

The climax arrives as the group builds intensity by layering timbre, contour, and direction. The final tapering vibraphone line is exquisitely placed, functioning as an epilogue of descending mist after the swell.

The closing track is the album’s architectural apex is “Paradise Lawns / October 29th.” Polyrhythmic patterns are abundant but never chaotic; the ensemble’s counterpoint is easy to follow because the parts interlock with mathematical clarity. The blending of textures of horn lines, vibraphone shimmer, bass grounding, and Taylor’s multi-layered drumming creates a unified groove that is deeply in the pocket.

Most compelling is how Taylor maintains thematic rhythmic relationships through the solo sections and interludes. He anchors while expanding, shapes while provoking. The track unfolds like a suite, pairing structural complexity with instinctive group motion. It’s a fitting finale: open-ended, richly constructed, and emblematic of the band’s modern identity.

Smoke Shifter is an album of contemporary jazz ensemble craft. The compositions offer clear frameworks while inviting the ensemble’s collective imagination. The improvisation is conversational, not competitive. The rhythm section is the foundation of the design shapes of everything the horns and vibraphone choose to say. With Smoke Shifter, Chad Taylor once again affirms what some of us have long known: when rhythm becomes language rather than pattern, the music speaks with extraordinary clarity.