Micah Thomas: Reveal

A drop mic, double plus good treatise by three very ballsy players—pianist Micah Thomas, bassist Dean Torrey, and drummer Kayvon Gordon—Reveal wastes no time stating its case, taking centerstage, and holding that promised land's glories tight.

Recorded in one seven-hour session, Thomas's second far-flung outing as a Blue Note leader and his third overall (the self-produced and eloquent Tide, 2019) deceptively chases the history of the piano trio then surpasses it altogether on the opening dynamo "Little Doctor (Take 2)." It lilts then picks up speed, hops then bops, twists and turns with each member locked in and, daresay, loaded. Torrey's fluid solo is airy, gritty, and full of the tones so many grand players have left behind, ie: Chuck Israels and /or Eddie Gomez, while Thomas and Gordon embark on stylistic displays all their own.

Studio-seasoned and road-tested, the trio is no stranger to the musical sleight of hand. Each has made their mark on such juiced-up proclaimed pronouncements as Immanuel Wilkins's Blue Note epics (Omega 2020 and The 7th Hand 2022); not to mention Ravi Coltrane, Sullivan Fortner, and Ambrose Akinmusire. Thus Reveal's articulate sleight of hand comes with instinctive ease. Exquisite proof of that lies in the melodic outreach of "Look at the Birds" and "Eros." Thomas' touch is light yet bold. His new line of thinking, lull and rappel, brought to the fore on each of the album's impossible-not-to- experience nine performances.

Loose and muscular, Thomas, Torrey, and Gordon play beyond their years with mature harmonics and intuitive acumen like the generations before them. "Lightning" possesses a Horace Silver or Lee Morgan power all its own. "Sacred Memory" is music from a holy place. "Stars" bears a more straightforward, but oddly romantic light. "Troubled Mind" may celebrate echoes of Paul Bley but it also puts to test all of Bley's many progressive theories. Throughout Gordon roils and rests ala Jack DeJohnette. "Denardirn" is a powerful recounting of all of the above and closes out Reveal on a most commanding high.

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