By Ed Hazell
Pianist Steven Lantner is one of the most original improvisers to emerge in the past several years. It's not simply because he is always searching for something fresh and original, but that his search uncovers more mysteries and ambiguities than comforting certainties. It also helps that his sound is unmistakeably his own. He shapes and colors his notes carefully and his articulation is precise. He develops his solos with a clear and characteristic sense of time, sequence, and drama. It is this combination of specificity and mystery that makes Steven Lantner's music some of the more articulate, challenging, and alluring being made today.
Although this is Steven's third album, it's his first in a standard jazz setting-a classic piano trio with Joe Morris on bass and Laurence Cook on drums. Morris makes his recording debut on bass on this recording. Melody is at the heart of his bass concept, just as it is with his guitar playing. Joe's choice of notes, the development of his lines, and the unique momentum-his swing-emerge just as strongly on bass as they do on the guitar. Perhaps because the bass is not dominant voice in the trio, it accentuates Joe's sensitivity as an ensemble player, a side of his playing that's rarely commented on. For instance, on "Jangle," Joe often shadows the general contours and length of Steve's phrases, although as the piece progresses he introduces a faster tempo and propels the music forward. It's also marvelous to hear Joe's sense of pattern, at times like almost a kora, and the tactile, earthy buzz in his tone, especially on "Saying So."
And what can you say about Laurence Cook? After more than 30 years, he plays like he's still amazed at the sounds that the drums can make. He's the most painterly of percussionists-color and form are always closely interrelated in his drumming. Just listen to his opening solo on "Once Through," a quiet design of delicate strokes and nuanced tone colors. Or on "Jangle," where he uses washes of cymbals, swirls of snare rolls, and heavier daubs of tom tom and bass drum to fill the musical canvas. He listens just as carefully to what's happening in the group as he does to his drums, too. A sudden flourish will erupt to flesh out some one else's phrase or he can just as easily ambush an improvisation and send it off in a new direction.
Together, they make music that flows organically and communicates with great clarity and warmth. Quite often an entire performance seems to grow directly out of an initial melodic kernal, with the trio's variations, extensions, paraphrases, and subversions yielding astonishing variety and subtly of form and expression. Like all masters of the disciplines of free improvisation, everyone is listening for possiblities; everyone is alert to the new sound that opens up a new avenue of expression. Not only is the music deeply melodic, it is rich in rhythms, but there isn't a steady beat. The changing lengths of the melodic phrases dictate the pulse of each improvisation, rather than the other way around. Without being confined to breath-length phrases, the musicians all seem to breath as one.
The music is too detailed and mercurial to describe in detail, but there are highlights worth noting. On"Saying So" the confident exchange of ideas and interlocking phrases between Steven and Joe quickly establishes the improvisation's spacious pulse. Then on the beautiful and quietly disturbing "Once Through," the trio maintains an inner dynamic tension that never resolves; all three are playing at different tempos, yet the group sounds unified. Steven's light, pinoint notes sparkle and wink over the bass and drums. His gestures are broader and the melodies skip more widely over the keyboard than on "Saying So" In the passages on "Jangle" during which Steven doesn't use any left hand accompanient to anchor his lines, they seem to fly, darting and dipping like swallows chasing through the summer evening sky. And it's wonderful to hear the shere creative variety in Steven's playing on "Under the Sun." He uses left and right hands interchangeably in either chordal, rhythmically supportive roles or lead-voice melodic roles, so there's no telling where a new idea may arise from or end up. -graceful sweeping arcs stop at unpredictable spots in their trajectories; stumbling, stacato notes cluster together in spikey little bunches; carefully placed notes shimmer in isolated spaces; he never repeats himself.
The piano trio, along with the trap kit, is one of the great inventions of jazz. It offers a perfect instrumental balance for conversational interplay and a perfect balance of the essential musical elements-melody, harmony and rhythm. It's possibilities are far from exhausted, and may never be as long as creative artists like Steven Lantner, Joe Morris and Laurence Cook come together to explore it.
These liner notes were reprinted with permission from Ed Hazell. They appear in Steven Lantner's release Saying So on Riti Records.
CD Reviews
Saying So by Glenn Astarita
Saying So by Nils Jacobson
Email
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