Harris Eisenstadt

Photograph: Peter Gannushkin/downtownmusic.net

Douglass Street Music Collective; Fri 5, Sun 7

To a trained ethnomusicologist, Guewel, the latest from Harris Eisenstadt, could probably pass as a doctoral dissertation. The disc, inspired by the local percussionist’s recent Meet the Composer–sponsored journey to Senegal, painstakingly interweaves Eisenstadt’s native avant-garde jazz with two distinct strains of West African music: traditional sabar, typically performed at life-cycle events; and mbalax, the funky Senegalese pop that Youssou N’Dour made famous. But despite its sturdy scholarly underpinnings, the release feels decidedly festive—Eisenstadt did, after all, play on the Wedding Crashers soundtrack. If dancing doesn’t occur at the Guewel release party Sunday 7, the fault will rest squarely with the audience.

Guewel’s music isn’t the sort that just any pickup band could navigate, so it’s fortunate that the record’s entire supporting cast will be on hand Sunday. One likely reason cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, trumpeter Nate Wooley, French-horn player Mark Taylor and baritone saxist Josh Sinton execute Eisenstadt’s complex vision so convincingly is that they’re all bandleaders and composers themselves. They can play wild and free—check out the way Bynum’s speechlike lines dance over Eisenstadt’s hand-drum-influenced trap-set work on “Kaolak/N’Wolof”—but they also do an outstanding job of inhabiting the propulsive yet poignant African grooves that pepper the album. Another group of multifaceted virtuosos, including trumpeter Herb Robertson and violist Tanya Kalmanovitch, abet Eisenstadt on Friday 5, when he performs what he’s calling “chamber improv music for streamlined orchestra.”