Thrill Jockey Records doesn’t specialize in any one thing – although, the label honchos might tell you that the imprint works with just plain ole, good music. And in an ever widening circle, the label has released its fifth recording with the Chicago Underground Duo (cornetist Rob Mazurek and percussionist Chad Taylor).

Thrill Jockey doesn’t just truck in Chicago based music, but with the talent that the city sports – it’s really pretty easy to find a show to see every night of the week – there’s a clutch of local acts on the imprint.

With this omnipresent sense of creativity, Chicago sports an interesting lineage of improvised and experimental musics. It’d be difficult to pick out a specific through line that serves to unify the city’s musical history, but there’s always an odd sense of adventure when taking a listen to anything from the town’s jazz scene.

But pinning the Chicago Underground Duo as just a jazz band does a disservice to all involved. There’s as much of a minimalist and avant garde bent to the work that the band does as anything else. And on its newest album, Boca Negra, the Chicago Underground Duo does its best to incorporate jazz history into its music while still maintaining a good servicing of odd, tossed of composerly stuffs.

It’s difficult to figure the thought process that moves Boca Negra from track to track. But by the time that listeners make it to “Quantum Eye” Miles Davis is pretty clearly referenced over the four minute duration of the song.

In not just the tone of Mazurek’s cornet, but the airy backing noises that serve as a frame work for the mellow melody could come from anyone of Davis’ latter ‘70s discs. The song may or may not be improvised – it’s honestly difficult to discern what’s actually intended over the course of the album and what’s a happy accident. But the slight horn lines that Mazurek gets out are thoughtful enough to carry the entire tune.

A bit further on, “Spy on the Floor” greets listeners with a few supplemental sounds – apparently concocted through digital technologies. But here the Chicago Underground Duo comes off like a big band, using up all the space that the track has to offer. Of course, the New Orleans styled drumming is a huge part of that – as well as befitting. But as Mazurek flies off into solos that are only just a bit blues based, the production makes its mark. Its deep echo does the unthinkable and approximates another player. It quite clearly isn’t, but with so much going on in the song, it’s easy to imagine a room full of musicians instead of just a duo accompanied by a producer.

There’s more on Boca Negra than would ever be able to fit into a proper album write up. But with that being said, the breadth of work here is part of what makes the group so interesting, not unfocused. Yeah, there’s some AACM styled weirdness, but also enough of a groove as to make the disc more palatable than one might expect.