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I’ve come across a band that has me questioning the already loose definition of jazz I thought I knew. Perhaps it’s just how modern jazz is evolving, or maybe it’s the blatantly different atmosphere painted by the band’s instrumentation. Whatever it is, Portico Quartet is without a doubt very unique. The band consists of drums, a saxophone, an upright bass, and a hang. What’s that? Never heard of an instrument called a hang? Yeah, me neither until I found Portico Quartet. It was apparently first developed in 2003 by a company called PANArt in Switzerland. Needless to say, the use of a hang rather than a guitar or piano has a very unique effect.

All of the jazz I owned prior to Portico Quartet had either a guitar, a piano, an array of horns, or any combinations thereof. But the heart of what makes Portico Quartet so different isn’t just that it doesn’t have any of these options, it’s that none of it’s melodic instruments play more than a couple notes at once. I suppose the upright bass player could strum four notes at once, which does happen from time to time. However the upright bass tends not to focus on chords. But I digress, my point is that a piano or a guitar is much more captivating by themselves than instruments that are physically constrained to play only one or two notes at a time. It may seem subtle, but having an instrument based on chords creates a much more solid core than one based on single notes. This is why I believe pianos and guitars are so prevalent. But beyond that, the lack of a chord focused instrument in a small 4-piece band could make for an overall disconnected presence. Pulling off such a line-up requires well-written compositions, great use of dynamics, and a very tight performance.

Despite all of the aforementioned downfalls of not using a chord based instrument in a small band, Portico Quartet is just as moving and riveting as The Avishai Cohen Trio, Phronesis, Kairos 4tet, etc. Portico Quartet got my attention immediately because of the hang, but the music is so solid that they would have kept my attention regardless of their instrument line-up. If I’ve kept your attention this long and the short audio clip strikes your fancy, I encourage you watch the video below and check out their only album thus far, Knee-deep in the North Sea (2007).