Stanley Baird

Tim Armacost: Rhythm and Transformation

by Donald Elfman
February 10, 2008

Saxophonist/composer Tim Armacost spent a year in Delhi starting in 1993 studying Hindustani rhythms. In 2002, he received a grant from Chamber Music America to write a suite that places these rhythms in a jazz context. The result is the title suite of this remarkable album. Two of the players on the disc--pianist Bruce Barth and drummer Billy Hart--are part of Armacost's working quartet and that they are open to the kind of rhythmic flexibility demonstrated here goes a long ...