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SONIC TRANCE
(Warner Bros.)
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More like an acid trip than a trance, New Orleans–born trumpeter Nicholas Payton’s new disc and first for Warner Bros. bears little resemblance to the rest of his recorded work. Using digital delays and a variety of devices that mutate his trumpet sound, Payton blends funk, acid jazz, and avant-garde squalling into a strange but tasty brew. His previous disc, Dear Louis (Verve), was a valentine to a traditional jazz giant, but he’s been playing N’awlins funk and listening to hip-hop and getting into a very different mind set lately. His sextet on this disc uses straight-ahead jazz and familiar sounds mostly for laughs, as in the polka-turned-free-jam "Two Mexicans on the Wall" or the tweaked-out ragtime of "Cannabis Leaf Rag 1." On his Web site, Payton distances the disc from Miles Davis’s 1969 jazz-rock rumble Bitches Brew, but the funk underbelly and his willingness to walk on the edge make the comparison natural. Sonic Trance may not mark the start of a musical revolution, but it is an intriguing step outside from a still-young (30 years old) lion.
