Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Nicholas Payton: Triune
Nicholas Payton: Triune
ByIn a sense, Spalding and Riggins represent two complementary strands of Payton's music. Spalding, ever the inventor, soars in this recording with eerie, ritualistic hums, a plaintive and iridescent bow that lingers to ambience in certain strands. Riggins is unimposing and sturdy. His drums never shed that undefinable yet essential element of necessity in a composition, the unerring embodiment of the rhythm. Between the two lies Payton, a furtive mix of new and old, conventional and radical, each equally without compromise.
The dichotomy makes for delicious, contentious music, especially in looser sections of "Ultraviolet" and "Jazz Is a Four-Letter Word," where Riggins' masterful navigation becomes tantamount to the health of the ship. Spalding, too, is profound and pensive, challenging the smooth licks of the vocalists' in "#bamisforthechildren" with her own acerbic swooning.
However, there is a sense that Payton is too slight a force in crucial phrases. On piano and organ, he does not relent for a second, propagating a bombast the more intellectual performers sorely require, but when manning the horn, he is oddly careful, sticks close to the lines and looses his sound in a torrent of conflicting rhythm sections. Unevenness aside, the record holds plenty of exciting ideas and late-summer warmth. Payton's organ in the mambo-esque "Gold Dust Black Magic" is strange and potent, and Spalding certainly earns her position as one of the finest bassists working today, and certainly the most mysterious. If the recording does not always congeal to a whole, those instances where it allows itself a sporadic, individual character, flirts with genuine insight.
Track Listing
Unconditional Love; Ultraviolet; Jazz Is a Four-Letter Word; Let It Ride; Gold Dust Black Magic; #bamisforthechildren; Feed the Fire.
Personnel
Nicholas Payton
trumpetEsperanza Spalding
bassKarriem Riggins
drumsNikki Glaspie
drumsIvan Neville
keyboardsErica Falls
vocalsOtis McDonald
drumsAdditional Instrumentation
Nicholas Payton: flugelhorn, piano, Fender Rhodes, Clavinet, vocals, tambourine, and handclaps; Esperanza Spalding: vocals.
Album information
Title: Triune | Year Released: 2025 | Record Label: Smoke Sessions Records
Tags
PREVIOUS / NEXT
Support All About Jazz
