A Venn diagram of Kirk Knuffke’s musical production would be complicated to decipher. Born and raised in Colorado, mentored by the late Ron Miles, Knuffke moved to New York in 2005 and quickly infiltrated the scene. During the ensuing 17 years, the 42-year-old cornetist/trumpeter—whose NYC mentors include Ornette Coleman, Butch Morris, and Wynton Marsalis—has brought his pellucid, full-bodied tone, melodic deftness, and conceptual acumen to two dozen or so albums as leader and collaborator, plus another few dozen as a sideman, maneuvering between different cliques whose stylistic affinities might not otherwise intersect.
Consider Knuffke’s latest, Gravity Without Airs (TAO Forms), on which he triologues with bassist Michael Bisio, a longstanding partner, and pianist Matthew Shipp, whom Knuffke previously knew only by reputation. After an initial encounter in a trio led by saxophonist Stephen Gauci, they convened for Bisio’s quartet album Accortet (Relative Pitch) and the duo album Row for William O. (Relative Pitch), then in Bisio’s string trio with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and with multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee.
“Michael has played forever with Matthew, and I’m a lifelong fan, so we always intended for the three of us to meet,” Knuffke said in mid-July via Zoom from Sweden, midway through a Scandinavian sojourn. “This trio record was inevitable, in a way. We see how it all starts colliding.”
Knuffke spoke from the farmhouse of the popular Swedish singer Josefine Cronholm, down the road from another farmhouse occupied by Danish bassist Thommy Andersson. “There’s nothing else around,” he said, evoking a pastoral Ingmar Bergman mise en scène. “The house is exactly as it was 200 years ago except for electricity and internet.” The next day, the Cronholm/Knuffke/Andersson trio were off to Denmark to play the Odense Jazz Festival. Then Knuffke would teach for a week at jazz camp in Engelsholm Castle before returning to New York. Earlier
