Pianist-Musicrafter Michel Reis Creates Seriously Interesting Pianistic Ensemble Music on "Point of No Return"

Musical artists often take exception to being pigeon- holed by the press and it in part has to do with their wish not to prejudice an audience in advance against their music in any way. Yet of course readers want to have some idea of what to expect from an artist and his or her music. Pigeonholing is one quick way to convey some sense of the music, just as bricks-and-morter record shops ordinarily divide what they are selling into various categories: rock, jazz, classical, etc.

The danger as I see it is in reification, to assume that because one has put a label on something, that somehow the music has been dealt with, explained. For an artist or ensemble in the throes of creating their music, these labels mean very little. Every musical event in this sense is a world unto itself, a center, a totality. And so it should be.

So if we look at pianist-composer Michel Reis's new Point of No Return (Armored Records 8011) we could say that he works in the advanced tonal realm, that the pianism in so great abundance on this album has some bearing on possible classical training, that the music is highly developed compositionally, sometimes almost through-composed, that the ensemble quintet of piano-bass-drums-fluegel-soprano sax seems often a kind of block extension of Mr. Reis's pianistic conception. All these things, to my mind, are part of the music as I hear it. That the soloing, especially from Mr. Reis, is quite imaginative is something again.

But if I then went on and charted out a mental map of "jazz pianists" and where Reis belongs on that map, at least if I were to do it in a sort of glib, shorthand way to categorize or even dismiss the music, I would not be doing a great service to the artist. We all tend to do it anyway at some point. But should we?

The point: every artist is his or her own center. We should seek to understand that artist as much as possible in the fullness of what makes him or her what he or she is, what makes the music different. That may be a quagmire. But there are qualitative and other aspects. One thing is sure, on a qualitative level, Point of No Return operates on a high level. That does not mean that the music is better or worse for belonging at a particular place in a continuum of stylistic possibilities available today. Those are judgments that I think are probably best not made for the sake of the artists and for the sake of the music.

One thing is sure: Michel Reis is an artist of talent. This one is highly recommended.

George Dulin Disband: An Exciting New Piano Voice

The pianism of George Dulin has all the linear thrust and power of a Bud Powell, but different notes! He's rather young but his play does not sound like it. There is a fully formed vision of how to go about his art. He is joined by thoroughly hip trio-mates on the Cadence Jazz album Ride of Your Life. Danny Zanker plays a forceful and note-refined bass. He solos with aggressive flair, plays ensemble passages with drive and walks (and sometimes skips along) with some of the best. The late drummer Take Toriyama has creative energy and a real stylistic thrust that helps make this group excel. He is replaced on three numbers by Jordan Perlson, who does the right things as well, if perhaps not as startlingly so.

The program contains standards like "Round Midnight" and "Monk's Mood," and a series of highly engaging recompositions of further standards. "Ella's Night-Light," for example, reworks "Stella By Starlight" ingeniously. The re-presentations are so inimitable and so complete that their original reference points become almost irrelevant. There are also a few quirkily engaging originals that are more or less tabula rasa.

Dulin plays plays bop without the bop. He has rethought the roots of modern jazz and remade them in his own stylistic image. A description of his playing? He has a harmonic grounding in traditional form and at his own volition, deconstructs, reconstructs and supersedes those forms at will. There is a rhythmic abundance to his playing at times, the modern equivalent to those semi-bizarre, tumbling anarchic introductions Erroll Garner pulled off so dramatically, only they are not quite the same, and they don't introduce anything but themselves.

Other times he gets into a linearly swinging chain of notes that don't have the least bit of cliche about them. Still other times he can go into a rubato passage that gives his own take on those pianists that came before in this mode, only he does not quote!

There is much to dig from the standpoint of the trio. Nice arrangements, profound drumming, bassmeistering of a high sort. . . .

Anyone who looks for something rooted yet innovative in the piano trio bag will do well to listen to Ride of Your Life. Dulin could well be a major new voice and you are getting in on the ground floor.

Satoko Fujii, Japanese Free Piano Powerhouse

Music aficionados in the United States don't always pay enough attention to what's happening in the rest of the world. Take Japan as an example. There is much going on over there, yet many of us don't really know much about it. Tzadik Records' New Japan series begins to rectify that lack, and we've covered a few of those releases in the various blogs in the last year or so.

Today we look at another one: Satoko Fujii's piano trio-duo-solo record Kitsume-bi. Fujii has magnificent ideas, a huge ear for the possibilities in free piano improvisation, and a style that does not have a derivative foundation. She goes her own way.

For the date she is joined by the always interesting Mark Dresser on bass and the explosive Jim Black on drums. For several cuts Sachi Hayasaka appears on soprano sax, and it's clear from those numbers that Sachi needs to be heard more over here.

But this is Satoko's show. There are some really compelling group presentations to be heard. Like the straight-eight motor-manic section of "Past Life," where a Pandora's Box of eighth notes spin wildly from Fujii's piano while bass and drums provide counter ballasts of sound parcels that contrast as well as complement.

Ms. Fujii has a sureness of execution and a confidence in her own stylistic parameters that translate into controlled yet at times wildly exuberant music, other times (especially in tandem with Ms. Hayasaka) ponderously reflective.

One ignores Satko Fujii at one's own peril. If you miss this CD, you miss a music making document that can be your personal blueprint for what's good about the improvised world today.