Dec 24 2017
Best of 2017 #23: Tyshawn Sorey – “Verisimilitude” (Pi Recordings)
Verisimilitude is a piano trio recording. It makes its intentions known in the opening notes of composer Tyshawn Sorey’s latest. Pianist Cory Smythe offers up some thoughtful phrases. Bassist Chris Tordini takes advantage of the open range by augmenting the rhythm with some melodic contributions. Sorey, on drums, adds nuance with a restrained patter and tasteful cymbal crashes. But Sorey’s creative impulses lean heavier toward forward-thinking expressionism, even as it goes about honoring that which has come before. And that marks where Verisimilitude ends its phase as a classic piano trio recording and becomes something else. Classical, electronic, ambient, avant-garde and any number of other influences become ingredients for an album that doesn’t exclusively cozy up to any one. And, intriguingly, the album never fully manifests into a final stage. It is music that is undergoing evolution while the tape is rolling. It’s a seed undergoing self-realization as the bloom is underway. That quality is what renders the album’s opening notes as the most intriguing moment of the Sorey’s latest project. Sorey’s trio rehabs the state of transformation into a permanent resting point, where everything changing is everything staying the same. Fans of Bill Evans are going to say this is the good stuff. Fans of Debussy are going to say this is the good stuff. Fans of Nils Frahm and Hauschka and Andrew Hill and Matthew Shipp are all going to say this is the good stuff. At least for a little while, until everything changes again. And that’s a good thing. Because Tyshawn Sorey is currently traveling a creative arc where every new change has the potential to be the most wonderful thing ever heard.
Music from NYC.
Read more on Bird is the Worm.
The music of Trickster possesses a strange and curious interface, as if a self-replicating alien language perpetually on the verge of translating itself into human words. The newest album from Miles Okazaki is driven by rhythmic forces that shape the melodies into their ultimate form, and the impression is that among the guitarist’s quartet of drummer Sean Rickman, bassist Anthony Tidd and pianist Craig Taborn, no one person is excluded from the opportunity to impose their will upon that motion. The result is a passive kind of addiction, where the album’s charismatic personality keeps the ear locked in place until the translation is complete, and what once seemed alien and strange becomes as welcome and familiar as a loved one saying hello.
Feb 7 2019
Album of the Day: Jonathan Finlayson – “3 Times Round”
Album: 3 Times Round
Label: Pi Recordings
Style: Post-bop, New directions
Favorite Track: “A Stone, A Pond, A Thought”
Music from: New York City
What I like about it: It won’t be breaking news for me to report that the magic is in the motion on Jonathan Finlayson’s newest release. It’s a subject broached previously on his 2016 release Moving Still. And deservedly so. The action unleashed by each piece triggered individual narratives like a conjuring trick becoming a new reality. I like that the trumpeter’s 2018 release begins much the same way, opening with the aptly titled “Feints” and how patterns hinted at in the framework of a piece are revealed as quickly as they’re replaced by a new emergent pattern. I like how that motion can be particularly thrilling at times, but that is also comes off as methodical in its way, as if a high-speed stratagem devised on the fly. But what I really like about 3 Times Round are those dramatic moments when the motivation becomes one of melody, rising up over a piece like the sun enveloping a dark landscape in bright, warm light.
Your album personnel: Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Steve Lehman (alto sax), Brian Settles (tenor sax, flute), Matthew Mitchell (piano), John Hebert (bass) and Craig Weinrib (drums).
Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon
Listen to more of the album on the artist’s Bandcamp page.
Be sure to check out the artist’s site.
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2018 • 0 • Tags: Jonathan Finlayson, Matt Mitchell, New York City, Pi Recordings, Steve Lehman