Tom Snyder should be content: he plays trumpet with a quintet that bears his name. His music is good and his bandmates are having fun, with regular gigs at a New York flower shop/bar. Lately none of it has mattered though, and Tom feels like giving up. Then a strange man hobbles up to him after a show one night and offers him an old trumpet, free of charge, calling it "the solution to your problems."
Tom accepts the gift and immediately feels a difference in his playing. His music comes alive, his band starts to draw bigger crowds and Tom's obsession grows. When a member of the audience swoons and drops dead, he shrugs it off. Soon the body count starts piling up, and a couple of goons come around asking about the trumpet, which may or may not be a stolen relic belonging to a mystical cult of sound.
Instrumental is the first graphic novel by Dave Chisholm, a New York trumpeter. His black-and-white drawings have the looseness and intensity of Craig Thompson and the compositional playfulness of Joe Sacco. Passages following the cult are at times disorienting, but overall this Faustian story is fun and easy to follow.
Chisholm's creativity and ambition overfloweth: a jazz soundtrack accompanies the book (available to stream or purchase on CD). Written and performed by Chisolm, each of the seven tracks corresponds with a chapter, meant to illustrate them or "enhance the mood." --Zak Nelson, writer and bookseller