Have you ever wondered what it felt like to have a panic attack in the most blissful way possible? Jesus Molina and his trio can easily show you with their recent track Night in Tunisia from Jesus' latest album, Departing.

This rendition of the classic jazz standard is nothing short of breathtaking. From the moment it begins, listeners are bombarded with a melodic swarm, closely followed by some of the tightest, machine-precise drumming heard in all of jazz. The details in Roni Kaspi's accents and dynamics are extremely rare, even in bebop tunes such as this track. Sam Smith's bass does far more than keep up with Jesus' eccentric playing and Roni's agitated rhythm – it supplements and lifts it further into the stratosphere of its soundscape. The melody, being played already so almost ridiculously fast, quickly fades as the solos sweep in from beneath.

Jesus is the first to take the center-stage, and lays out the most captivating performance, one that would make even the most talented musicians bow down to his playing. His play on melody is outstanding – a true tug of war between tension and resolve, which isn't necessarily uncommon in jazz, but the way Jesus executes this feeling is risky to say the least. He almost sits just a bit too long in disharmony, only to reel it right back to key. To supplement this even further, his play on rhythm converses ever so elegantly with Roni, which is a feat ridiculously hard to pull of when you're playing at such a fast pace. His playing is filled with polyrhythms, aiding the complexity of the piece all that much more. The sudden breaks into both hard-funk rhythms and swing will surely bring a smile to the listener's face (or, more appropriately, the famous “stank face”).

The song is quite short, especially for a bebop piece, falling just over three-minutes-and-thirty-seconds, but the band wastes no time to communicate with the person on the other end of the speakers. Despite lacking a distinct bass solo, each instrumentalist get ample time to shine, which makes for this track to be a perfectly wrapped piece of history – a glorious tribute that would make the founding fathers of hard bop proud.

Night in Tunisia is just another proof of Jesus', and the band's, mind-boggling talent, whilst staying interesting enough not to let this piece be a simple musical flex for three minutes. It's a testament of comradery between three talents, and an experience worth sharing to all your fellow jazz nerds.

Author: Nicholas Gaudet

Music producer and writer from Dieppe, Canada.