Paul Giallorenzo: Get In To Go Out

The 15th album in 482 Records' Document Chicago Series, Get In To Go Out is the debut of pianist Paul Giallorenzo's quintet. One of the few free-leaning pianists working in the Windy City's vital new music scene, Giallorenzo's angular approach towards writing and improvising draws inspiration from the seminal Post-War innovations of such pianists as Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, and early Cecil Taylor.

As co-founder and director of the creative non-profit Elastic Arts, Giallorenzo entertains a range of projects, including an electro-acoustic improvising trio (Breakaway), a synth-pop duo (The Telegraph Series), and a traditional piano trio with bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten and drummer Tim Daisy, as well as numerous sideman duties and collaborative projects, ranging from film scores to sound installations.

Exploring the fine line between inside and outside jazz traditions, Giallorenzo's quintet features some of Chicago's most in-demand players, including saxophonist Dave Rempis, cornetist Josh Berman, bassist Anton Hatwich, and drummer Frank Rosaly. As befits the album's title, the group treads a razor's edge between traditional structures and unfettered freedom, updating the rough and ragged edges of Monk's soulful Riverside dates and Taylor's thorny Blue Note sessions with a pithy modernistic sheen.

Giallorenzo's oblique writing is indebted to Monk's angular intervals and pensive rhythms, as demonstrated by the lilting "Twisted Lopes," jaunty "Steamin In Cleveland," and swaggering "Eternal Circle." The expansive "Fifth Flow" transcends stylistic limitations, seamlessly transforming from riotous free jazz to swinging hard bop. "Porous (for Quintet)" showcases the quintet at their most introspective, while "Crazy Ladies" spotlights the group's gift for dramatic development.

These labyrinthine pieces feature strong, tortuous melodies and malleable rhythmic centers, which Hatwich and Rosaly navigate effortlessly, bringing freewheeling enthusiasm to in-the-pocket grooves and meticulous detail to aleatoric detours. The nine originals veer from impressionistic lyricism to fervent expressionism, with Rempis' acerbic outbursts providing the album's most climactic moments. Gracefully offset by Berman's clarity and poise, they make a rich front-line combination.

The leader's deft touch and abstruse lyricism invokes Monk's rarefied sense of melody, with a boisterous attack similar to Taylor's efforts of the late 1950s. At his most contemplative, Giallorenzo's dulcet filigrees ebb with a silvery sheen, as on "Porous (for Quintet)," while the spiky, staccato bursts of "Vacillation" find him at his most assertive.

A winning document of the developing Chicago scene, Get In To Go Out is a promising debut from a talented new voice.