Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Sacha Perry: Eretik

284

Sacha Perry: Eretik

By

View read count
Sacha Perry: Eretik
Sacha Perry first emerged out of relative obscurity last year as a member of the Across 7 Street quintet on Made in New York, the second disc in Smalls' ever-expanding catalogue and the one that more or less established the label's prevailing sound: fresh but familiar, accessible but challenging, heady but emotive. Or to borrow others' paradoxical comments on Perry himself: "neither retro nor revival," "extraterrestrial and down to earth," "old but new," "[music] you've never heard before but thought you had."

The pianist's first disc as leader, Eretik ("is heretic, is erratic, is erotic"), gives Perry a more prominent voice than his collaborative work with Across 7 Street, spotlighting his individual style of composition and performance. His solos are colorful and rolling, always with an air of spontaneity and urgency . His tunes are memorable and Monk-like—proud, in a way, of their quirkiness, without being too cute or alienating. "All Right" and "Let's Get with It" are straight-ahead melodies that hover on the edge of dissonance, and the opener "Erratic" is something like a mutated "Jeepers Creepers." For touchstones other than Monk, think Bud Powell and Frank Hewitt, especially evident on the cheeky/classy "Goodnight, Goodnight" intro. Perry's left hand generally tends to be laconic and mathematical, his right uninhibited and poetic.

Perry is accompanied here by bassist Ari Roland, another Across 7 Street alumnus, and drummer Phil Stewart. The members of the trio are clearly comfortable together—enviably so—yet they remain taut and responsive, despite the casualness of the set. Stewart prefers his brushes, and his mixes of sliding, slapping, caressing, and chugging mimic and sustain Perry's jerky bop melodic lines. During solos Roland makes frequent use of his bow. This works well on tracks such as "Another Day"—digging and sawing, more abrupt changes in motion to parallel the piano. But on "Let's Get with It" it backfires. The bouncy finger-snapping momentum of the track gets a bit lost with Roland's bowed solo, which sounds uncertain and aimless. Perry almost seems relieved when he closes it out by sprinting from one of Stewart's rapid-fire drum solos to the next.

What might best illustrate the music of Eretik are the penultimate and final tracks, "Hope Springs" and "Desolation." The former, despite its title, is not entirely optimistic. Nor is the latter entirely grim. There's a lot of spirit and joy to be found in Perry's music, and when his trio swings, it really lets loose and swings. But there are equal amounts of severity and haunting, and it takes a subtle musical intelligence and rich sense of humor to put them successfully side by side. Perry capitalizes on these contradictions for a fire-and-ice effect, creating forward-looking bop with deep roots.

Visit Sacha Perry on the web.

Track Listing

Erratic; All Right; Let's Get with It; I Keep Coming Back to You; Whirligig; Goodnight, Goodnight; Another Day; Things Gone By; The Panic; Hope Springs; Desolation.

Personnel

Sacha Perry: piano; Ari Roland: bass; Phil Stewart: drums.

Album information

Title: Eretik | Year Released: 2005 | Record Label: Smalls Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.