Serpentine

Description

Revolutionary Snake Ensemble delivers another blast of brass-powered jazz, funk and New Orleans street rhythms with the blazing live album Serpentine! The ouroboros, a serpent swallowing its own tail, is an ancient symbol of infinity and the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth. The omnivorous Revolutionary Snake Ensemble isn't quite eternal, but the brass-powered Boston combo devoirs and reinvents a panoply of irresistible grooves, and with Serpentine the sextet is poised to gracefully undulate into its fifth decade. RSE's fifth album is a joyously uproarious live session recorded in 2024 at the Regattabar as part of the group's 35th anniversary run. Led by inveterately inventive alto saxophonist, flutist, and composer Ken Field, the RSE is a musical insurrection with enviable longevity. As NYC Jazz Record noted, the group has earned a devoted following with "its unique and somewhat twisted twist on the New Orleansbrass band tradition...hard-partying avant-funk, with boisterous soloing." Almost a decade after the release of the band's last album, 2016's critically hailed I Want That Sound!, the group boasts the same potent line up, with Dave Harris on trombone and tuba, tenor saxophonist Tom Hall, bassist Blake Newman, trumpeter Jerry Sabatini, and drummer Phil Neighbors, "whom I've been playing with the longest - he's an amazing drummer," Field says. "The concept of not having a chording instrument in the band allows for tremendous freedom on the part of the horn players. The arrangements are usually spontaneous, decided by me on stage based on the group vibe and on my vibe at the moment!" Spirits were obviously high at the Regattabar, one of the Boston area's leading jazz venues. The RSE sounds loose and limber, delivering one thrilling piece after another, enviably undaunted by the prospect of making a new album with Field changing up arrangements on the spot. "I told the guys, 'Don't worry about the fact that we're recording,'" Field says. "'Don't hold back. Take chances.' Jazz is an experimental form. If you do the same thing every night you're not doing jazz right, in my opinion."