FH12-04-01-016 Mary Halvorson (g), Jonathan Finlayson (t), Jon Irabagon (as), John Hebert (b), and Ches Smith (d). Rec. date not stated

2010’s Saturn Sings, the first quintet record from Brooklyn-based Mary Halvorson, was very good indeed but Bending Bridges is even better, up there with her trio work and her collaborations with Anthony Braxton and Marc Ribot. The Ribot link makes sense: there can be something cosy, almost smug, about jazz guitar, but Halvorson is closer to a tradition represented by Ribot or Bill Frisell or James ‘Blood’ Ulmer or Fred Frith or Derek Bailey.

It isn’t that she necessarily sounds like any of them, although there are hints; it’s that she has the same ability to emerge victorious, from what Martin Amis would call the war against cliché. Halvorson is an increasingly strong composer too, now clearly writing with these four other voices in mind. The vocabulary can be that of the avant-garde, but there’s at least a toe in popular music: it’s no surprise that she loves Robert Wyatt. Is there a better guitarist in her generation?

– Marcus O’Dair