Jazz quintet Diverse wins Gene Harris Jazz Festival, Origin Records Competition, truly delivers

By Skaught Patterson. To view the original article click here.

Diverse, the eponymous album by Kansas City Jazz group Diverse, is a true success story, the rarest kind of success story, the kind that almost never develops to such a fruitful outcome. Most of the elements of it are fairly commonplace—all of the right pieces come together, a group of talented musicians meet at college, they begin working on their own original music, they enter a contest, grand prize is a recording contract—these things happen. But what doesn’t usually happen is full delivery on the part of the band and of the contest sponsors to create a top notch album worthy of national air play. This is that one in a million story where it all came together.

The group formed in 2008, and within six months, leapt into competition in Boise, Idaho at the Gene Harris Jazz Competition, sponsored by Boise State University. First prize was a recording contract with Origin Records and, hopefully, world wide fame. The 2009 release of Diverse is the ticket to earn the quintet just that. 

Diverse features five top notch, young musicians from the UMKC Conservatory of Music. Trumpet player Hermon Mehari has laid down a recording that displays the precision of a classically trained musician, with almost none of the squawks that most trumpet players let slide, even in heavily produces recordings, as acceptable quirks of in-the-moment soloing. Mehari’s playing is precise. He is also the composer of one of the best songs on the album, “Lost in Darkness” (track eleven).

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Diverse is expertly produced and even features a track of Kansas City saxophone great Bobby Watson (track seven, “Where it Lives”), a mentor who provides insightful liner notes about the quintet’s formation and growing experience.

For those who love modern and avant-garde jazz, this album is truly a winner.