Chad Taylor Quintet, Smoke Shifter Review

by Jeff Becker

Drummer and composer Chad Taylor clarifies something on Smoke Shifter, conversation is an exchange of parts that make structure hit with audible creativity. This sixth release under Taylor’s is a project of modern jazz that demonstrates a process in which rhythm, form, and texture become shared responsibilities to create a powerful forward moving force.

Taylor’s quintet of Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet, Bryan Rogers on tenor saxophone, Victor Vieira-Branco on vibraphone, and Matt Engle on bass create the rhythm units as a living system. Each player contributes compositions, but more importantly, each contributes to a collective logic in which leadership circulates through time feel, density, and patterns. Taylor’s drumming is the gravitational field that brings the groove to the foregrounded and is essential in shaping how everything moves.

The album opens with Rogers’ “Broken Horse,” and from the first moments the band sounds fully alive. Taylor establishes a multi-layered rhythmic environment. The pulse has subtle shifts, overlapping and joining Engle’s ostinato bass figure. What emerges is a groove that flows with a creative terrain. Horn lines rise and lock in harmony, then fracture; the vibraphone refracts the rhythmic energy in counterpoint. This is where the album declares itself: rhythm is accompaniment and the lead language. The band functioning collectively, making a responsive organism.

“Avian Shadow,” Engle’s contribution, deepens this ethos. The piece is built on interlocking figures where rhythmic placement matters as much as pitch choice. Written and improvised material blur, not through looseness but through ensemble interactions. Taylor’s drumming provides a feel that is architectural in shaping space to create an impact on the senses.  Finlayson’s trumpet and Rogers’ tenor move between assertive clarity and open-ended inquiry. The piece is an ensemble building an audible reward of tension and resolve.

Taylor’s own “Waltz for Meghan” sits at the album’s structural center. The piece communicates through a form that tells a story of rhythms. The A section’s counterpoint, vibes and horns moving in harmonically fluid conversation, making the energy gather. The Latin-inflected B section introduces kinetic lift, Taylor’s drums leading the momentum without forcing it. A transitional C section mediates between these worlds, neither dissolving tension nor amplifying it. The result is a composition that demonstrates how contrasting materials become powerful only when aligned toward a common goal. The emotional resonance comes from collective rhythmic alignment.

The title track, “Smoke Shifter,” further reveals Taylor’s philosophy. A contemporary Latin-inspired groove underpins layered syncopation, with horns drifting in and out of harmony and counterpoint. Taylor’s drumming steers from within the pocket. Long horn harmonies are matched with steady eighth-note grounding, while Engle’s bass syncopation adds buoyancy. An Afro-Caribbean undercurrent hums beneath the surface, tutti passages adds rhythmic memory. All giving the piece its forward motion and openness.

The album closes with two works by Vieira-Branco: “October 26th” and “Paradise Lawns/October 29th.” The former unfolds slowly, a vibraphone led meditation with bass and drums before the horns enter to thicken the atmosphere. The latter expands into group improvisation, tension and color intensifying as roles dissolve. When Taylor’s unaccompanied drum solo arrives, it does not feel like rupture or display. It is a deepening. His soloing is melodic, multi-voiced as each drum and cymbal acts as part of a distinct voice with the pattern. Intensity ebbs and flows, but groove never disappears. This is a spontaneous composition, a summation of the album’s inner logic rendered in rhythmic motion.

Smoke Shifter sounds dense with information at time, but the listening experience is anything but alienating. The music has motion, groove, and rewards repeated engagement. It represents jazz with its foundation in rhythmic interplay, textural layering, and collective form-making. Taylor’s leadership is felt through his pulse that unifies this distinct voices, making  trust in rhythm the shared ground.