Drummer/composer/educator
Tyshawn Sorey returns with pianist
Aaron Diehl and bassist
Matt Brewer, the trio that recorded the standards set
Mesmerism (
Diehl also played on the drummer/composer's live
Off-Off Broadway with
Greg Osby). Aptly titled
Continuing, it offers tunes by and in tribute to late jazzmen
Wayne Shorter,
Ahmad Jamal, and
Sorey's one-time mentor and teacher,
Harold Mabern (the album is dedicated to his memory). The exception is
Matt Dennis' "Angel Eyes." Aside from the personnel,
Mesmerism and
Continuing couldn't be more different. The earlier recording marked the trio's debut -- they rehearsed for the first time hours before recording --
Continuing emerges from the collective's confidence gained playing live. This is a piano trio, speaking as one, not soloists playing together. This is ensemble music meant to showcase communication and emotion.
Shorter's "Reincarnation Blues" was composed for and recorded on
Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers'
Buhaina's Delight in 1963. The jaunty hard bop classic is driven by the frontline horns. Pianist
Cedar Walton merely comps until his brief solo. Here,
Diehl's dark minor chord forcefully initiates a slow, swinging blues. He frames the lyric in minor voicings as
Brewer punctuates them;
Sorey dances around them imaginatively on hi-hat, ride cymbal, and snare. Following
Brewer's elegant blues solo,
Diehl adds softly played dissonant notes in call-and-response.
Jamal's "Seleritus" originally appeared on 1958's live
Portfolio of Ahmad Jamal, and was resurrected for the following year's
Jamal at the Penthouse.
TST's version is an abstraction. Prodded by circular hi-hat rhythms,
Diehl forgoes
Jamal's delicacy, favoring bolder chord voicings in establishing a forceful presence the rhythm section responds to. At the three-minute mark,
Sorey lays out double-timed, syncopated breaks.
Brewer bridges harmonics between pianist and drummer, creating an alternate lyric. Increasing the tempo, the pianist exhorts his bandmates with strident chords.
Sorey then drives with funky carnival rhythms and Latin-infused swing. The long, glacially paced "Angel Eyes" is spectral, spacious, and crystalline --
Diehl's piano initiates a procession as
Brewer accents with single notes before embarking on a tender solo.
Mabern's "In What Direction Are You Headed?" was composed for
Lee Morgan's final eponymous album. A fingerpopping exercise in space age soul-jazz, it begins with
Sorey's funky breaks as
Diehl and
Brewer flirt with blues. At two minutes in, it's a punchy swirl of frenetic interplay. At five minutes in,
Brewer and
Sorey claim the foreground with a fat, propulsive, circular vamp.
Diehl, in the upper register, layers on percussive lyrical accents. After eight minutes, the trio acquits an astonishing exercise in interlocking, hard-angled vamps, grounded by
Sorey's NOLA second-line beats. This remarkable version captures
Mabern's gospel, blues, and soul roots, reframes them in exciting 21st century post-bop, and illuminates their influences on
Mabern's composition. With
Continuing,
Sorey's trio gets deep and wide, but performs without artifice. They present a brilliantly pointillistic, polymetric, authoritatively evolved language for jazz piano trio. ~ Thom Jurek
![Portrait in Jazz [LP]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0025218108812_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Portrait in Jazz [LP]")
![Schizophrenia [Blue Note Tone Poet Series]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602448498533_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Schizophrenia [Blue Note Tone Poet Series]")
