Saxophonist-composer Jacam Manricks came to New York City from his native Australia where he piloted his rendezvous with fate, and has become a pre-eminent performer in his trade. His second CD as a leader, Labyrinth, has a world music fluency with post-bop leanings and chamber-jazz vining. Accompanied by Ben Monder on electric and acoustic guitars, Jacab Sacks on piano, Thomas Morgan on acoustic bass, Tyshawn Sorey on drums, and a 40-piece chamber orchestra, Manricks probes the dynamic relationship between the intimacy of bop and the concert hall furnaces of string-based symphonies. These two components are coupled beautifully through the floating sensations and flowery plumage that drive the track "Micro-Gravity." Produced by Manricks, Labyrinth has the sculpted finery of atmospheric jazz, the spiraling staircases of eclectic jazz, and the tangential angles of avant motifs.

Numbers like "Portal" and the title track are catacomb in angular curves and shooting geysers etched by Manricks saxophone. The gemstone-sparkle and bronzing of "Move" gives the soft tempo a floral texture, and the stirring piano vamps that stable "Cloisters" produce a vigorous rustling creased with temperamental streaks. The track moves into sinuous curves creating bop-inspired cuts as Monder's guitar chords spike through the misty cloud-clusters. The wispy tendrils that terrace "Aeronautics" have a droopy posture, while the emulsifying feel of the strings and saxophone in "March And Combat" have a penchant for sloping upwards. The final track "Rothko" has a soft and contemplative stride, almost like the strokes are made carefully and executed with caution. The sounds are eclectic and the melodic spreads are adorned in avant-brocades with spindly tentacles as the track pays homage to the idiosyncratic styling of painter Mark Rothko.

Labyrinth follows Jacam Manricks debut album, Sky's The Limit, from 2000. Manricks is a familiar face in New York City’s jazz rooms. He performs with his quartet, his trio, and other notable ensembles such as The Tyshawn Sorey Quintet and the Felipe Salles Band. Additionally, he teaches jazz saxophone/woodwinds and improvisation at New York's New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Manricks displays a flare for bop-inspired harmonies loomed with orchestral plumes and wedged by palms of rock guitar. His syllabus for Labyrinth is musket with references linked to post-bop artisans while feeling his way around extracting his own voice. Labyrinth is a piece of work that does for jazz what author Walt Whitman did for existentialism, he gives the genre meaning that people can relate to and apply to their own lives.