Jazz
Palmetto Records · 18 September 2026
The record opens with “Wind Spirit” (4:29), where Dawn Clement sings John 3:8 about the wind blowing where it pleases while Matt Wilson brushes the cymbals so quietly you almost feel them rather than hear them; the rest of the sextet comes in one at a time. It’s Good Trouble’s second album, two years after the one that carried the band’s name (Palmetto, 2024).
The covers are what set the tone. Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” (4:19) is stripped back to resistance at low volume, with eight bars of tenor from Jeff Lederer that make the best short solo on the record. “Anyone Who Had A Heart” (4:17), by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Clement sings with no effects and without pushing the ache. And Andrew Hill’s “Black Fire” (5:30) is where the rhythm section really tightens and where Tia Fuller and Lederer play hot without losing the angularity of the original.
The line-up is unusual for a drummer’s record: two alto saxophones (Fuller and Anisha Rush), Lederer on tenor and clarinet, Clement on piano and voice, and Ben Allison on acoustic and Hofner electric bass. “Fuller Love (In Case You Missed It)” (6:34) is the longest track, written by Bobby Watson in tribute to trombonist Curtis Fuller, and it starts on a groove vamp the band picks up before Tia Fuller enters with a muscular alto sound. On the title track (4:34) a chorus of family and friends joins in singing it.
Ten tracks drawn from very different places (a Bible verse, Bobby Watson, Tom Petty, Andrew Hill, Bacharach, a spiritual and Wilson’s own writing) and the band nearly always solves them the same way: mid tempo, Clement’s voice out front, one solo each. Eight of the ten sit between 4:17 and 5:52 and nothing ever spills over. The cohesion that comes out of it is one of temperature, and “Black Fire” is the only place the sextet lets itself sound uncomfortable.
Ten tracks, fifty minutes, Palmetto Records, 18 September.
Rating: 7.5/10
Text by Aina Torrents