Made in Kalamazoo (Trios and Duos) is a free-wheeling set of high-energy music that is a love letter of sorts to a place Hall appreciates for its vibrant arts community, dynamic industries and vital personal connections. The album documents the drummer’s most accomplished and compelling playing and writing to date.

Made in Kalamazoo finds Hall in a few different modalities with the players involved. There are three solo drum features — placed at beginning, middle and end — in which Hall pays homage to the towering role models Billy Hart, Elvin Jones and Max Roach. There are seven tracks with the full trio, including three compelling Hall originals (“Coming of Age,” “Creative Force,” “Well of Hope”) and four tunes that the leader co-composed with Rathbun (“Douglass King Obama,” “Kzoo Brew,” “The Promise,” “Boiling Pot”). And there are 10 spontaneously composed duo tracks for drums and reeds, giving Rathbun creative space to “plug in” at times with signal processing, dirtying up the sound and leading the duo onto new and shifting terrain.

The joy these three players share in making music is evident on every note of the trio portion of Made in Kalamazoo. Their rapport is fueled by a supple in-the-pocket swing, with an essential balance of looseness and intricacy and ample room for the three virtuosos to stretch. On the duo portion, Hall and Rathbun access another side of their creativity, delving into what Hall calls “a fun experiment of various grooves, textures and sounds.” Results range from swinging acoustic jazz to wah-wah funk, spacey synth and guitar-like riffing. Taken together, the trios, duos and solo drum moments of Made in Kalamazoo speak to the breadth and depth of Hall’s experience, the extraordinary level of communication and trust between him and his colleagues, and the regional inspiration of their Michigan home and all that it has given them.

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