(1 July 2024) Always eclectic and compelling, and often experimental, EE Pointer is one of a kind, as a composer, musicians (trumpet, keys), and bandleader. Pointer has a new album, WORM, that dropped as a CD and as streaming July 1. The album traces (through music) “some touchstone over the past two years. Some heavy times,” Pointer writes in the album liner notes. The album opens with Pointer’s iconic go-to style, late-Miles Davis trumpet over two-and-four, an electric brassy fusion style Pointer has perfected and for which he is known, such as with KC’s own River Cow Orchestra. But this is not an album of only that. It shifts drastically (but gradually) from this modern sound across soundscapes to music “in the tradition,” such as “Uprights,” which sounds like a ragtime stride tune. It’s piano-only, nothing electronic or electric, and the tune has a kind of levity our era lacks. In some ways, the album sounds diary-like. One day, rain. Another, clouds. Another, sun. But, despite its variety, the album is unified and seems carefully plotted and planned. The tunes lead one into the other, of a piece, invisibly stitched. About the album, Pointer writes, “I don’t want to spoon feed anybody any ideas of what the music means, sounds like, or how it was created. It is still pretty much impressionistic, so the ball is in the listener’s court (to mix my metaphors). The Neo Impressionistic slant of the compositions on ‘Worm’ shou