January/February 2009

Shot X Shot
Let Nature Square
High Two

By Bill Milkowski

Intelligent, keenly interactive Philly free-jazzers Shot X Shot absorb and re-contextualize the examples set forth by Sun Ra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Marshall Allen, Anthony Braxton, Sunny Murray, Milford Graves and other avant-garde heavyweights on this wildly uncompromising outing. These four young upstarts (tenor saxophonist Bryan Rogers, alto saxophonist Dan Scofield, drummer Dan Capecchi, bassist Bryan Rogers) embrace the diametrically opposed concepts of composition and chance music in their freewheeling jams like “Oh No” and “Autobonsai.”