I know it’s early in the year but I’m going to name Nicole McCabe’s Color Theory as one of the sleepers of the year. This album by a rising player in the Los Angeles jazz scene slipped in under my radar and captivated me on first listen. McCabe teaches and mentors jazz players in SoCal, plays alto saxophone, and on the evidence of this album is a composer to be reckoned with.
Color Theory is chock full of engaging melodies courtesy of McCabe, and she and her guest trumpeter, the hotshot Brooklynite Adam O’Farrill lay down loads of harmonies that range from creamy to eye-opening. “Air Sign” is a good choice for opening track, a near perfect post bop recording. I just love the brilliant colors that flow from the duets by McCabe and O’Farrill, over a fluid and dynamic base laid down by her core rhythm section of Yvonne Rogers on piano, bassist Kanoa Mendenhall and drummer Eliza Salem.
O’Farrill’s back for “Twister,” the two playing a complex composed head melody over Mendenhall’s deliberately plodding bass line. From a welcoming melodic intro to a series of ever more complex improvised sections, this one’s a workout for the musicians and the listener. In between is the aptly named “Hues,” an upbeat and melodic exercise in the instrumental color pallette: piano and bass unison lines, saxophone and far right piano keys in the coda, sax and bass in spiky interplay, and continuous pushing of the beat by Salem’s sticks and skins. (A generous piano solo makes me long for a whole trio recording from Rogers, Mendenhall and Salem!)
McCabe exercises her compositional skills and her collaborators’ improv muscles on tracks like “Cent Cinq (500)” a groovy, soulful blend of cool jazz (Salem on electric keys) with some harder soloing from McCabe; the experimental fare of “To You” (with some cello-like tones on synth from Salem); the pulsating, freely improvised “Hype Meter,” the minimalist “Assumption” and “Loop,” a short solo sax excursion into electronics and looping. There’s yet more standard fare, like the ultra rhythmic “Hope,” with McCabe and O’Farrill playing a contrastingly smooth duet over a non-standard beat, and “Sifting, Shifting,” featuring wordless vocals by Christie Dashiell — lovely tune with an impressive bass line that grounds those ethereal vocals.
Tip of the hat to producer Jason Moran, who surely contributed to the overall feel of this album, although he obviously had great material to start with. Most of all, Color Theory is tons of fun to listen to. I’ll be giving Nicole McCabe serious consideration in whatever categories she shows up in in the Down Beat year-end readers’ poll.
(Nicole McCabe, 2026)
