Anna Butterss : Mighty Vertebrate
Jazz, just like any other musical genre—rock, hip-hop, electronic, country, soul, funk—is directly related to the way culture moves. So when it does progress, generally it’s the music—before film or anything else—that represents that shift, allowing new voices to enter the chat with their ideas on how art should carry out that prompt. Or as Miles Davis famously said, “You gotta play where the ears are at.”
For Adelaide, Australia-born musician Anna Butterss, who now resides in Los Angeles, this fact has propelled them to explore and travel innovative pathways within and outside the idiom. Having played bass and worked with an impressive roster of artists, from Phoebe Bridgers to Makaya McCraven, Jenny Lewis to Jeff Parker—these are long stretches in style but all within Butterss’ wheelhouse. Mighty Vertebrate sees this in-demand bassist and musician leaning in on ideas that run, as always, in and out—fluid—of the jazz idiom. Flexing their expertise for more subdued arrangements to round out the multi-talented artist’s CV, proving once again that range is where Butterss thrives, quite healthily.
From years of jamming, rehearsing, and sharing community with similar minds, Butterss was part of a crew of musicians who played at the now-defunct ETA in Highland Park, where audiences and musicians alike hung on for the long, trance-like expressions where eventually the jam would get found. But it’s the pathway there that kept these musicians and the small crowd coming back for that head-nod sorcery.
That frequency hit wax and digital platforms throughout Jeff Parker’s 2022 Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy and then landed with a serious thud on this summer’s post-rock, Afrobeats ambient smasher of a project, SML by Small Medium Large, which includes Butterss on bass along with synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. In true edited, chopped, and rearranged stereo-mixed improvisations, it’s an elongated situation. The outro fam-bam jam “Three Over Steel” is that avant-garde thumper, melding sax licks and Johnson’s sloping lines of scat, with Butterss laying on the slick, thick ooze of gravitational shit.
So when International Anthem announced Mighty Vertebrate, the second solo album from Butterss, it was facts many didn’t know was coming but were quite happy to hear. Mighty Vertebrate sees Butterss working with a group of colleagues who operate simpatico with the psychic connection: Ben Lumsdaine, a co-producer on the album with Butterss, Josh Johnson, Gregory Uhlman, and a cameo from the lead guru of sorts for this wing of jazz, Jeff Parker. Vertebrate gets all the colors and tones in on a well-written modern fusion record.
There is a specificness here that will for sure drive jazz purists out of the damn room. But this is not built for them, and that’s okay. There is so much for that structure already, right?
On the in-betweener “Dance Steve (feat. Jeff Parker),” Butterss gives us ambient lead time, orienting the listeners before giving up the Afrobeat jam session that ensues with free-flowing body rock vibes. Or the lo-fi hoodie weather jam “Breadrich,” which sets spoken words and astral chords over the dirgy, spunky attitude that lets loose to the funk-fusion refrains, where if you dig deep, it’s in those chord changes where your purist jazz-ness exists. See what I mean? It’s jazz, but served up the Butterss way, right down to the closer “Saturno” with its droney fusion pasture, Josh Johnson’s atmospheric sax phrasings, lo-fi drums, and hidden bass gently leading this somber medley of things to come.
Label: International Anthem
Year: 2024
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Anna Butterss : Mighty Vertebrate
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