Human Feel

The Human Feel collective studied at Boston conservatories before issuing their self-titled debut on an independent imprint in 1989 and subsequently committing Scatter to tape for Gunther Schuller’s GM Recordings imprint. Once bassist Joe Fitzgerald exited, the former Beantown five-piece settled into Manhattan as a quartet and reached maximum momentum in the mid-nineties, when all four players became fixtures of the downtown jazz milieu. Throughout that decade saxophonists Chris Speed and Andrew D’Angelo, drummer Jim Black, and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel produced two further quartet statements—Welcome to Malpesta for New World in 1994 and Speak to It for Songlines in 1996—while simultaneously raising their profiles through numerous side projects helmed by fellow downtown figures. Speed and Black both entered Tim Berne’s Bloodcount and distinct Dave Douglas ensembles; the pair also collaborated inside Pachora, Speed’s yeah NO quartet, and Black’s AlasNoAxis quartet. Black additionally worked in Ellery Eskelin’s trio and with Laurie Anderson, D’Angelo entered Matt Wilson’s group, and Rosenwinkel drew widespread acclaim after signing with Verve. The band’s catalog illustrates the musicians’ interplay inside an intimate collective format, the quartet discs in particular revealing their singular stance toward contemporary creative and avant-garde jazz. Human Feel reconvened for Galore, issued on Speed’s Skirl label in 2007, and performed intermittently afterward, eventually confirming that a sixth studio album would appear in summer 2014.