Jonathan Reisin is an Israeli-born, Brooklyn-based sax player-composer. Too Good X Unreality is Reisin’s second album as bandleader, following Option B (Habitable, 2022), and featuring him on soprano and tenor saxes, pianist (including prepared piano) Shinya Lin (who collaborated before with Reisin on their duo album, Scopes, Self-Released, 2021), and drummer Jarred Chase. The album was recorded at Park West Studios in Brooklyn in August 2024.
The six pieces highlight Reisin’s thoughtful compositional strategy that explores the subtle connection and balance between complexity and simplicity in music, control and release, and between carefully notated chamber jazz to loose free jazz. Reisin worked on establishing this kind of open dynamics for nearly two years, using Lin’s deep knowledge of the sonic spectrum of the prepared piano, often a ghostly, percussive one, and Chase’s intricate, orchestrated approach to drumming. Reisen’s contemplative sax playing ties all with melodic lines that weave in and out of the harmonic and rhythmic patterns into complex textures, and he encourages the trio’s constant expansion of its sonic possibilities.
Reisin’s compositions demand deep listening but guarantee surprising, thought-provoking sonic nuances and compositional discoveries. The two-part, conceptual title piece best demonstrates this resourceful trio’s thoughtful, almost sound-oriented dynamics. It focuses on sound exploration, silence, space, blending, pulse, and repetition. The sparse, minimalist interplay stresses the timbral qualities of every note and the spaces between notes, letting every sound breathe and blossom, before all slowly gravitate towards a fragile, spacious but poetic texture with a fragmented rhythmic pattern that sounds as if corresponding with the seminal work of Morton Feldman. The delicate «Offertorium» was inspired by the late Russian contemporary composer Sofia Gubaidulina and uses Lin’s prepared piano and its altered timbres to explore alternate tuning systems and melodic structures. The last piece, «Prelude», reflects on the album’s introspective journey, a reflection that lingers beyond the final note of this bold, impressive album.
Eyal Hareuveni
Jonathan Reisin (tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone), Shinya Lin (piano, prepared piano), Jarred Chase (drums)
