Jonathan Reisin: Too Good X Unreality

Saxophonist Jonathan Reisin says of the tunes presented on his Too Good X Unreality: "These pieces are especially fragile." They are. They are like butterflies in their fragility, vignettes of space and delicacy possessed of an underlying tensile strength. A complexity/simplicity dynamic is there.

His trio consists of his tenor and soprano saxophones, Shinya Lin's piano and prepared piano and Jarred Chase's drums.

There is a sense of the musicians sitting down without any preplanning and slipping into a free-form conversation, sometimes deliberative and understated, occasionally agitated. The saxophone can roar at times. The drums are capable of clamor when the moment calls for it. The piano probes. Drone-like interludes emerge, inviting low thunder rumbles and clatters and clicks into the mix. Is the music too cerebral for easy (a musical layman's) comprehension, or is it too simple to be taken seriously? Probably neither. Maybe a bit of both. Background music or something for a full attention immersion. Probably both.

Is it pure improvisation? The guess is maybe; but whatever the guess, a flexible framework likely lurks.

Too Good For X Unreality is a work of spacious beauty, an approachable avant-garde dreamscape in seven parts. Anything tagged avant-garde says surprises are coming. The album does not disappoint in that matter. But the surprises fit into a cohesive whole, making sense in their unique way.