Ariane Racicot: Danser avec le feu

The piano trio is a tried and true jazz format. Art Tatum, Erroll Garner, Red Garland and Ahmad Jamal made their marks there. Also Bill Evans, Marc Copland and Brad Mehldau, and so many others. And let us not forget Fred Hersch and a hundred or so more.

Some artists, feeling constrained by the limitations of the trio and wanting to push the boundaries with the addition of electricity, energy and the modernity of their own compositions take their sound away from the traditional. Past examples: The Bad Plus and the Esbjorn Svensson and—not one to let boundaries get in his way—Brad Mehldau, who can embrace the traditional with the best of them and go as rock-heavy far out as anybody when the mood strikes him.

Ariane Racicot is of the new breed, with a taste for experimentation. The cover art of her debut album, Envolée (Multiple Chord Music, 2022) features the pianist in a black dress in full stride in front of a blue wall, an image that is slightly blurred as if the camera can not quite keep up with her forward momentum. The image is striking. It seems to say: "Here is an artist who is going places." The music on that album ( review here) proved it. Her sophomore effort, Danser avec le feu does a double down on that 'going places' claim.

Racicot's influences are many. She says she is a metalhead. For those with an aversion to that music, fear not. She employs the impact of the influences of heavy metal bands—Judas Priest, System of Down, Slipknot—with Antoine Rochefort's electric bass, injecting assertive textures in the Racicot songbook with his cohort, drummer Guillaume Picard as they push things towards a look into the future of jazz. The tag metalhead does not bring refinement to mind. But Racicot has it, via her master's degree at McGill in jazz piano, and from—by the sound of it—a joyful and optimistic nature.

Taking a cue from the Mehldau approach, she employs here a two-handed attack on the keyboard, adding a double dose of her fierce energy to the mix.

The title tune was inspired by a viewing of Cirque du Soleil, which featured a fire juggler. It made her want to groove. She took this desire into the studio to record "Dancing With Fire," the album's title track. She grooved hard, with a tempestuous verve.

And, as it was with her debut disc, great cover art, her dark hair caught in a tempest.