Eva Novoa: Solo (I)

Pianist-composer Eva Novoa can be a difficult listen from time to time. Her modulations. Her incantations. Her dynamic agility to take any moment behind her instrument can be disconcerting to an audience that has not learned to think or imagine broader horizons for themselves. So let us be thankful Novoa took to Manhattan's Sear Sound Studios on West 48th with an active, jagged passion and recorded Solo (I).

Since coming to New York for keeps in 2012, Novoa has challenged the daring downtown norm and comes out the winner on such previous recordings as the fire-dancing Trio (577 Records, 2024 ) with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Devin Gray, 2023's take-no-prisoners Novoa /Kamaguchi/ Cleaver Trio -Vol. 1 (577 Records) alongside bassist Masa Kamaguchi and muscled drummer Gerald Cleaver, and 2018's loudly-applauded Live At IBeam (Blue Sounds, 2018) with her Ditmas Quartet, namely the equally-mercurial alto saxophonist Michael Attias, bassist Max Johnson, and drummer Jeff Davis.

But Novoa alone, possessed as she is on Solo (I), is a whole other thing entirely. And then again, she is not. Therein lies the innate and inescapable spirit that drives "Left Behind," the feisty, delicate free-jazz opener. Enlisting her gongs and chanting vocals, multiple city hymns echo and resonate down every avenue on the haunting "Dime Con Quién Tú Andas." "Stilte Cabine" is the restive place we all deserve to inhabit at some point in life. But then Novoa immediately follows with the teasing shards of "Just Say It." She then turns to her Fender Rhodes to drive the driven exuberance of "Time Will Tell." Novoa closes out the resilient Solo (I) with the faraway lullaby "Tumbleweed" and comes out the sure winner one more time.