Matt Ulerys Loom: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

The next time you go to see live jazz in a club, and the band is playing original compositions, look closely in front of the musicians. Sometimes there ll be stands holding sheet music. There s nothing wrong with this per se, especially if the music is a bit complicated. But sometimes there ll be no need for stands, as the musicians have memorized the material. It s impressive, but it also signals a certain commitment, one borne of having rehearsed and performed together often. You frequently see this in tight bands that know what they re doing. The Chicago bassist Matt Ulery writes beautiful music in an unpretentious way. It s intricate stuff, with interlocking parts and segmented structures. It often borrows from Eastern European scales, orchestral tone colors, folky textures. (On his backpack, he sports a SXSW patch from when he toured with a rock band called In Tall Buildings. ) But it doesn t sound like calculus class, as in some other ambitious works of modern jazz. It never seems to stray too far away