In a 2019 article, Forbes Magazine decreed that the two characteristics women need most to thrive in the business world are “grit and grace.” Bass trombonist Jennifer Wharton has exemplified those qualities in the music she’s made with her brass-forward band Bonegasm since its 2019 debut.

How else to explain Wharton’s venture into improvising and bandleading after years in the classical world, big band sections and Broadway orchestra pits? Or her dedication to giving the oft-neglected trombone – and more to the point, her own bass trombone – its place in the spotlight? And not least, that she’s done so with a tricky balance of elegant arrangements, bold musicianship, and audacious wit?

On her third outing with Bonegasm, Grit & Grace (due out October 20th, 2023 via Sunnyside), Wharton demonstrates both attributes brilliantly on a vibrant and thrilling collection of new music, played with rousing vigor by the stellar ensemble: Wharton on bass trombone, along with trombonists John Fedchock, Nate Mayland and Alan Ferber, pianist Michael Eckroth, bassist Evan Gregor, drummer Don Peretz and, on half the tracks, percussionist Samuel Torres.

1. Be Normal (5:20)
2. In Our Darkest Hour (7:10)
3. Anita (5:42)
4. Mama’s Alright (5:05)
5. Norhala (6:46)
6. Uncertainty (6:30)
7. Menina Sozinha (6:20)
8. Virtual Reality (5:46)
9. La Bruja (5:48)
10.Coop’s Condiments (6:27)

The new recording opens on the joyously fervent Be Normal and the more limber, yet strained In Our Darkest Hour and then brings us the sweeping Anita, the uproariously decadent Mama’s Alright and the stoically-hued Norhala.

Along next is the glorious Uncertainty and the opulently structured Menina Sozinha and they are in turn backed by the rhythmically dutiful Virtual Reality, the veritably shimmering La Bruja and closes on the upbeat and flirtacious Coop’s Condiments.

The album provides a showcase not only for the leader’s grit and grace, but for that of several women composers that Bonegasm commissioned to write for the album: Vanessa Perica, Miho Hazama, Carolina Calvache, Natalie Cressman and Nadje Noordhuis. Wharton herself joins their ranks, contributing her own compositions to the band’s book for the first time.

“Dare I say, ‘I’m a feminist’?” muses Wharton. “I didn’t have any female role models coming up, so I’m trying to encourage young women. Then I looked at my band and realized it’s me and a bunch of dudes – just like most other bands I’m in – so I decided the answer was to commission only female composers for the third album.”

www.jenniferwharton.com

Official Purchase Link

Jennifer Wharton’s Bonegasm @ Facebook