At a March Seattle gig, SML generated three epic improvisations of subtle groove science (the second piece even evoked the funky swagger of Average White Band’s “Schoolboy Crush”) and galvanic hypnosis. It was the best show this writer saw in 2025, and that it differed from the relative concision of the group’s records just proves SML can thrive in various modes.
The 2024 debut Small Medium Large established SML as a fascinating new force in the jazz/improv underground. With traces of Jon Hassell’s uneasy, tranquil Fourth World music and ECM-style chamber jazz, the record vigorously hybridized elements into beguiling, novel shapes. How You Been (International Anthem) is a deceptively mundane title for an LP that ventures into shifty and rewarding sonic territory. You get the impression that these phenomenal players – bassist Anna Butterss, saxophonist Josh Johnson, guitarist Gregory Uhlmann, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and drummer Booker Stardrum – don’t take themselves very seriously, yet the music they create is among the headiest in the land.
More from Spin:
Things really take off with “Chicago Four,” which jitters with the industriousness of ’90s-era Mouse on Mars. Uhlmann’s staccato guitar stabs through a peculiarly ambivalent synth melody that seemingly drifted in from a mid-’70s Chick Corea or Joe Zawinul LP, as Stardrum’s off-kilter martial beats tussle with Butterss’ probing bass line. “Daves” is kinetic post-jazz that moves with Cubist misdirection. By contrast, it sounds as if a weird club banger is struggling to emerge in “Stepping In/The Loop,” but the polyrhythmic percolations seem more at home in the concert halls of academia. Paradoxical tensions rule.
The album peaks on “Taking Out the Trash,” the skewed, five-dimensional funk and bustling complexity of which recalls no less than Miles Davis’ On the Corner. Uhlmann and Butterss’ interplay is mesmerizing, while Stardrum’s metallic percussion adds a layer of tantalizing texture and Johnson peels off a frenetic yet poised sax solo. Throughout, the musicians seem to be cooking in their own worlds, but their parts fortuitously interlock and tasty grooves frequently arise. There’s so much going on in How You Been, and it’s all interesting.
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
