[ad_1]
Ethan Iverson – Technically Acceptable
(Blue Notice Information. Album overview by Tony Dudley-Evans)
For his second Blue Notice album, pianist Ethan Iverson has produced a different programme that includes two separate piano trios, a piano-theremin duo, and a solo piano sonata.
He showcases an unique and distinctive strategy to the piano-bass-drums trio by combining components of Nineteen Thirties and 40s fashion with a up to date sound and dynamic. The primary trio, which performs the opening seven tracks, options double bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Kush Abadey. As Iverson says, “When I play a 12-bar blues with Thomas and Kush, it doesn’t sound like 1944 within the slightest. It appears like 2023. However on the identical time, it’s a throwback.”
On ‘Victory Is Assured’, Morgan and Abadey create a 30s/40s rhythmical really feel over which Iverson performs with touches of stride piano. Iverson additionally enjoys introducing stunning, but logical, twists of phrase in his solos. Equally, the title observe has a contact of Ellingtonian piano, however once more with modern twists. Different tracks, equivalent to ‘Who Are You Actually?’, ‘It’s Positive To Decline’ and ‘The Means Issues Are’ are extra modern in really feel, and construct on a stable pulse from bass and drums. ‘The Chicago Model’ is an intriguing observe, nearly minimalist in its melodic improvement, however as is usually the case, it builds to a ‘maximalist’ climax.
The interplay between this trio is constantly spectacular. Iverson’s duo with Rob Schwimmer on theremin is a really distinctive interpretation of Monk’s ‘Spherical Midnight’, with Schwimmer’s theremin sounding uncannily like a human voice.
Not but a subscriber of our Wednesday Breakfast Headlines?
Be part of the mailing listing for a weekly roundup of Jazz Information.
The second trio options Chilean-born double bassist Simón Willson and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza. The two requirements they play, ‘Killing Me Softly With His Tune’ and ‘The Feeling is Mutual’, discover the piano dominating greater than in earlier tracks, with a heightened give attention to the tune’s melodic improvement.
Iverson’s ‘Piano Sonata’ closes the album. The primary motion, Allegro Moderato, combines stride piano with the twists and turns of the primary trio tracks, whereas within the second motion, Andante, brief melodic concepts grow to be the main focus. Within the remaining motion, Rondo, Iverson’s taking part in alternates between melodic phrases and brief rhythmic thrashes, growing by means of numerous modifications of temper, tempo and rhythmic interruptions.
Iverson is “focused on attempting to wrangle these nearly archaic kinds in a modernist manner,” and he has executed simply that, each efficiently and fascinatingly.
LINKS:
Purchase Technically Acceptable / Launch date 19 January
[ad_2]