By: Ross Edwards
Rating: 8/11

Despite my initial reaction to a cheesy album title, Nick Kadajski’s 5 Point Perspective’s Remembering Things To Come reveals a unique jazz with a sharp edge, and an interesting melee of guitars, alto, bass, and drums. They are skilled technicians, no doubt, and with enough maturity to mix their sounds wonderfully. The personality interplay of guitarists Ben Cassoria and Sean Moran illustrate a delicate relationship. Brad Maestas’s elegant bass playing communes directly with drummer Brian Adler and subtly with Kadajski’s alto. Basically they sound like a band, like they’re improvising from a familiar, comfortable, truthful space.

The compositions are idiosyncratic, but they have a tendency to depart so far from the opening melody that it’s hard to tell (or remember) what the hell song is actually about. Kadajski took the album name to heart and wrote melodies that are appealing while they last, but are quickly left behind for the next, completely different section. This is the case on “Musings On Beethoven,” which starts off as a dirge-like 2^nd movement, but is suddenly abandoned a minute in for a percussion onslaught, and then a jam-band re-ignition out of nowhere. What happened to Beethoven?  He is revived suddenly and angrily at the end.

The album does display some beautiful variance, as on the almost drum-less, melodic poem “Gently,” the weirdly straightforward samba of “Lessons Learned,” the demonstration of different tones on guitar trading in “Sameitude.” The ballad “The Ness of Kate” (‘Ness’ as in lake?  I’m not sure…) has a Hendrix and Metheny quality, although subdued and gradual.  

And perhaps the title’s not so cheesy after all, as Nick Kadajski’s brother claims in the laudatory liner notes, citing from Ralph Ellison: “… the end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.” That sounds pretty deep, but it also sounds like a strong emphasis on the future and moving from isolated section to section. All in all, Nick Kadajski’s first album sounds great, although occasionally artificial.