“San Francisco gets such a bad rap. Maybe what I’m trying to describe is a more macro view of the city, zooming out, looking out at the buildings, how they lay on top of the hills.”
— Steven Lugerner
Two years after the pandemic-inspired jams on In Solitude, SLUGish Ensemble captures a more downtown-influenced jazz exposition on their new album, Urban Crawl. Though at first reminiscent of a traditional, enchanting bebop album with its drums, bass, and guitar, the tasteful additions of solos and soundscapes played on Wurlitzer (Colin Hogan) and synthesizer (Ian McArdle) lend the album a fluid, modern touch.
Led by Steven Lugerner on bass clarinet, the sextet tours through six mostly slow-paced compositions named after intersections largely around Lugerner’s home in Nob Hill, though they speed up the pace when they venture west on the energetic “California & Fillmore.” Further afield, on album closer “Stow Lake Drive,” the musicians cycle through a charming, lightly held dance, mirroring the short circular road that surrounds the namesake lake in Golden Gate Park (though it’s since been renamed Blue Heron Lake).
