Harris Eisenstadt September Trio, The Destructive Element

For my money Harris Eisenstadt is a key composer, drummer and bandleader on the new jazz scene today. Happily there have been a good number of recordings to document his music, and today we have another fine one.

Harris joins together with two beautiful players in his September Trio for the disk The Destructive Element (Clean Feed 276) in a program of Eisenstadt compositions. They are place setters sometimes for some excellent improvisations--yet have a memorable quality either way for the best of the new. In Angelica Sanchez and Ellery Eskelin, piano and tenor, respectively, Harris has chosen well. Angelica may not be a household name as yet but she impresses strongly here as elsewhere as a pianist who can get inside a tonality and take it to farther reaches when it seems right, all with her own way of going about it. Of course Ellery Eskelin is a monster artist, someone who keeps turning in great performances and remains a fresh voice, an evergreen so to speak.

The program goes from strength to strength as composition and artist meld into what is a most creatively probing series of chapters in a seriously absorbing "book" of music. My system is crashing this morning continually so I must cut this a bit short and check my virus software!

The Destructive Element is to me one of the minor masterpiece of this year thus far, eminently worth your time.

Rob Mazurek Pulsar Quartet, Stellar Pulsations

Chicago's Rob Mazurek is one of those select artists out there now whose every recording is interesting, unpredictable and worth hearing. A recent one by his Pulsar Quartet, Stellar Pulsation (Delmark 2018) is no exception.

The quartet is a good one, Rob on cornet, the burgeoning pianist Angelica Sanchez, and a rip-snorting rhythm section of Matthew Lux on bass guitar and John Herndon at the drums.

It features seven memorable Mazurek compositions in an in-and-out zone. There are changes at times, chromatic expansions, rhythmic freedom and infectious pulse as called for, moods alternately blazing and tender, and some wonderful musicianship.

Rob sounds great as ever, Angelica Sanchez shows why she is especially in demand these days with her very pianistic ability to be inventive and striking in whatever the vein, and Matthew and John tear it up.

It's one not to miss. Mazurek is essential and this is one of his best.

Harris Eisenstadt, September Trio

With Paul Motian passing away recently, he is on my mind. As I listen again to Harris Eisenstadt's latest, September Trio (Clean Feed 229), I am reminded of Paul's drumming and the sort of music the first Jarrett Quartet and Motian's own groups made. Not that Harris is copying. But his drumming, his composing, his group sound here is in a lineage that in some ways has evolved out of those milestones of our more or less recent past.

But September Trio stands on its own in an excellent way. The compositions are strong, Ellery Eskelin sounds great (with a hint of Dewey Redman here) and Angelica Sanchez comes through with a rubato creativity that does have some relation to early Jarrett, but expands outward with some beautiful voicings and note poems.

Three accomplished players, three strong concepts, carefully thought-out Eisenstadtian music. This has a cantabile quality and a thoroughgoingly modern lyricism. Beautiful music! Harris comes up with another winner on this one!

Angelica Sanchez's Solo Piano Debut "A Little House"

Every solo piano album by an improvising artist does not have to be the same as the ones by the rest of the bunch. I've found that some are more the same than others. I've found that Angelica Sanchez's debut in this realm, A little House (Clean Feed 206), is not only not the same, it's charmingly, substantially different. First off she is geared up to play music, not to show her jazz pedigree by playing old standards, bop chestnuts and generally putting on the jazz dog.

But first you want to know who she is? Angelica Sanchez. Well OK, you've gathered that. She is an up and coming artist who's been playing with Wadada Leo Smith, Phillip Greenlief, Paul Motian, Brian Groder, and others. She's a New-York based key specialist who is rapidly gaining credibility and good exposure in a town where that is by no means an easy thing.

The reason why that is seems fairly clear from the solo album. She plays freely improvised music with a heart and soul. There is whimsy in her pieces that add the toy piano; there is mystery in her inside-the-piano evocations; there is pure melodism in her searching pianistic essays. Well, no, not pure exactly, since harmony is there too, understandably. It's an honestly direct kind of improvising. Angelica pursues musical ideas and develops them. Those ideas are not at all in the realm of cliche.

It's avant piano with a human face, a human heart. It's piano music that exudes personality, a human being behind it all.

You end up after a few listens knowing that Ms. Sanchez has direction. She may not have totally arrived at her destination, which is only proper, but she is going someplace.

And while she is going there she has left behind an excellent example of solo piano musings. Very much recommended.

Matt Bauder Fields Excellent Quintet for "Day in Pictures"

Reed-tenor jazzologist Matt Bauder has integrity. He writes well. He plays with the assurance of someone who has internalized the music, grasped its essentials and communed with his instruments to emerge with a kind of brilliance and right-sounding quality. And as a bandleader he can pick the right people too.

A Day In Pictures (Clean Feed 210) gives you plenty of evidence to consider, and plenty of inspired moments to appreciate. He's gathered together a quintet that gells nicely. Matt's tenor sets the in-and-out clock to midnight, and the time flies by. He's lucid, he's given it all some thought and brims with good ideas, well executed. He does not ape somebody else. He apes himself. His clarinet playing goes someplace too.

Nate Wooley brings the seasoned polish and flexibly masterful playing style that gets him more and more attention on the scene in recent years. He forms a perfect foil in the front line. Bauder and Wooley meld as one in their approach, but remain themselves in the process.

The new voice of Angelica Sanchez on piano gets good exposure on Pictures. She, the complete pianist: beautifully concise in her phrasing on the inside moments; logically lucid in the free-er spots. She has real talent and does much to make this session hum.

The rhythm team of Jason Ajemian on bass and Tomas Fujiwara at the drums brings the ideal balance of swinging drive and daring looseness that beautifully suits them for Bauder's in-and-out.

Finally, the pieces. They are brilliant as well. There's a nod to the history of the music, some classic Blue-Note-like referencing that shimmers when placed in a more modern context. And there's much else about these pieces. They show the hand of a talented jazz composer.

So there you have it. Five excellent players playing first-rate modern jazz. One excellent jazz scrivener showing seven of his best numbers. The combination has real heft, power, excitement.

Very much recommended.