Eugenia Choe: So We Speak

New York-based pianist Eugenia Choe's first two trio albums on SteepleChase Records, 2016's Magic Light (review here) and 2018's Verdfant Green (review here), featured her trio with bassist Danny Weller and drummer Alex Wyatt. For her third album release, So We Speak, Choe goes with a trio once again, this time teaming with vibraphonist Yuhan Su and vocalist Song Yi Jeon. The result is less the traditional jazz trio mood of her debut and its follow up, and more of a cohesive and ethereally lovely dreamscape.

There is something about the pairing of piano and vibraphone (Modern Jazz Quartet, anyone?) that can result in a transcendent luminescence in the right hands. The right hands are hear on So We Speak.

After a pandemic-induced hiatus, Choe and vibraphonist Su began meeting to explore the possibilities of the duo format. A duo album was considered. But—serendipity—Choe's friend, vocalist Song Yi Jeon contacted the pianist to say she (Jeon) was planning a trip to New York from her home in Berlin, and Choe saw an opportunity. A project featuring a rearrangement of a number of tunes for piano, vibes and voice came about. Improvisation in life's circumstances; improvisation in the music.

Jeon's vocalese contributions enhance an otherworldly beauty to the mix of these classically influenced, improvisation-embracing tone poem tunes.

Choe said of her original piano trio with bass and drums: "Our ultimate goal as a trio was interplay." That same ethos is transferred to So We Speak—different trio, same foundational way of creation.

Choe created this music with, in part, an imaginary girl named "Margie" (the title of the opening tune), to speak to the theme of "vulnerability, resilience and strength. Margie dedicates herself to following her Nabi (Korean for butterfly) and learns to adapt, endure and await her time to fly."

Choe and with Yuhan Su and Song Yi Joen fly on So We Speak, like butterflies, lifting into delicate levitations, reacting to the subtle shifts in the winds with their deft improvisations and Choe's well-crafted tunes. Choe is at her best when she takes a theme by the hand and entices it into her desired direction. She did that on her first two albums, and she does it here on So We Speak .

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