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Following on from Pimp Master, rapid rolling drums open ‘Dawn’ a fitting title for track one. As Tabu’s trumpet and Motoharu’s saxophone combine with Josai’s piano, the trademark Soil & “Pimp” sound exudes, a combination of technical and melodic precision with heart racing vigour.

‘A.I.E’ has a monstrous groove with Akita’s double bass firing in time with Midorin’s drums, bursts from the other instrumentalists ignite a fantastic track. Full on funk appears in the furious ‘Makuroke’ and amongst the handclaps of the laidback ‘Funky Goldman’. While in half a dozen tracks Pimpoint is pure “Death Jazz”, complete with more supreme melodies plus cries from the band’s ‘agitator’, Shacho. Some of my highlights are the dazzling piano in ‘Mashiroke’ and ‘Zambezi’, Akita’s use of a bow in ‘We Want More!!!!!’ and the forever enthralling trumpet/saxophone exchanges such as in ‘The Party’.

Freddie Hubbard’s masterful composition ‘Red Clay’ gets an uptempo bass heavy rework with the epic riff sounding majestic from the combination of saxophone and trumpet. Fans who made the recent show at London’s Jazz Cafe were treated to a vocal rendition complete with the sublime singing of Brownswood Recordings labelmate Jose James! Look out for his forthcoming show at Cargo on July 19th. Having seen Soil & “Pimp” Sessions live a few times, including tremendous shows last year at Montreux and the Worldwide Festival, there are an act who excel when facing an audience. Their mind-boggling energy is captivating and I thoroughly recommend people to take any opportunity to witness this thrilling act in the flesh.

A subtler side to the band’s talents are shown in ‘Hype of Gold’, ‘Pluto’ and ‘Scales’. These three superb tracks move gracefully around gentle rhythms and beautiful modal melodies. Pimpoint closes with a classic Soil & “Pimp” Sessions track, Sahara, which as well as featuring on the Pimp of the Year album, has also been released as a vinyl single complete with a Zed Bias remix (Check Gerry’s review). My ears fail to tire of the layered saxophone and trumpet resonating over scintillating drums.

Quite how “pimp” will be manipulated into a title next time round I do not know, but with music of this quality I am not concerned. Brownswood Recordings are handling the UK release of Pimpoint, scheduled for July 16th.

Links:
Soil & “Pimp” Sessions
Brownswood Recordings
Freddie Hubbard profile on BBC radio 3’s Jazz Legends
Jose James
Brownswood Sessions: Jose James at Cargo, July 19th