Zealous Angles is the second (double) album of prolific American, New York-based pianist-composer-bandleader Matt Mitchell’s long-running trio featuring double bass Chris Tordini and drummer Dan Weiss, following Vista Accumulation (with reed player Chris Speed, Pi, 2015). As with anything that Mitchell is involved in, this trio is not a typical jazz piano trio. Mitchell’s idiosyncratic compositions for this trio reflect Mitchell’s recent interest in multiple asynchronous cycles using polyrhythm and polymeter. The pieces contain anywhere from two to six lines of different lengths, with enough freedom for all the musicians to play any lines and interpret and improvise within and among the material.
The highly complex rhythmic outcome, with its unexpected harmonic and intervallic ideas, sounds as if this trio dances around itself, spontaneously and constantly shifting its intricate, precise rhythmic center while keeping a melodic-textual fluidity and stimulating energy, even on the most sparse and minimalist pieces. It is clear that this trio has been playing for a long time, and Mitchell encouraged Tordini and Weiss to bring all of their musical creativity and knowledge as well as their rhythmic instincts as they see fit. Mitchell’s trust in Tordini and Weiss allows the music its organic flow. Mitchell prepared eleven concise pieces for this album but decided to include six more alternate versions. These versions stress how the trio takes countless, different instantaneous and quite adventurous decisions while employing tension to vary its rhythmic drive. The trio was scheduled for a full-day recording session but its profound dynamics and rapport led to the completion of the session in only three hours.
American, Brooklyn-based double bass player-composer Kim Cass leads a trio on his third album Levs, featuring Mitchell (Cass played on Mitchell’s A Pouting Grimace, Pi, 2017, on Mitchell and drummer Kate Gentile’s Snark Horse, Pi, 2021 and on Gentile’s Find Letter X, Pi, 2023, where Mitchell also played) and master drummer Tyshawn Sorey. Cass’ compositions for Levs were inspired by the images of hand-notated classical scores, including those of 20th-century iconoclast composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Arnold Schoenberg, and Pierre Boulez. Cass wrote 13 short compositions meticulously by hand, paying as much attention to the aesthetics of the notation, and viewing them as works of visual art with the shape of the images and music naturally informing each other.
Cass is well-versed in the entire history of jazz and free improvised music but attempts to suggest a highly personal, sometimes even provocative perspective on those rich legacies. Cass’s compositions are deeply idiosyncratic, composed from the perspective of the double bass as the leading instrument, displaying a fantastic articulate and technical command as he pushes his instrument’s sonic palette to its farthest limits. All compositions offer complex polyrhythmic structures and form a unified, polyphonic sound. Mitchell doubles on the vintage analog synth prophet-6 and guests flutist Laura Cocks and euphonium player Adam Dotson join on a few pieces and expand subtly the sonic spectrum of the trio. But strangely, the more complex, cerebral and precise this music is, the freer it sounds. Mitchell and Sorey are the perfect partners for such a volatile yet stimulating journey, imbued with a sense of ominous mystery.
Mitchell is part of another great trio, this time of Canadian, New York-based tenor sax player-flutist-composer Anna Webber’s simpletrio2000 which was formed in 2013 (Mitchell continued to collaborate closely with Webber over several albums including the recent duo Capacious Aeration, Tzadik, 2023), with drummer John Hollenbeck, for its second album, simply titled simpletrio2000 that follows Simple (Skirl, 2014). This trio of accomplished musicians-composers-bandleaders makes complex music at the intersection of avant-garde jazz and contemporary music that sounds engaging, uplifting and addictive with its subversive sense of humor, energy and playful dynamics.
Simple Trio has been Webber’s longest-running band, and she values the partnership with Mitchell and Hollenbeck immensely and both influenced her way of composing. Webber’s music for simpletrio2000 comes from her explorations of polyrhythm, often while using extended breathing and percussive techniques, but it always radiates a strong sense of incandescent joyfulness. Her compositions often restrict two of the musicians to strictly notated scores while allowing the third musician to unleash a restless and urgent improvisation, but she wisely lets the music breathe together, anticipate and weave its distinct lines together. Webber also composed three concise solo pieces – «Fixed Do» for tenor sax, the dramatic piano composition «g=GM/r2» (the formula for determining acceleration due to gravity) and the resonant drums «Ch9tter», to spice things up a bit more.
Three great trios, each one in its own special way.
Eyal Hareuveni
Matt Mitchell (piano, prophet-6), Chris Tordini (bass), Dan Weiss (drums), Kim Cass (bass, sampling), Tyshawn Sorey (drums), Laura Cocks (flutes), Adam Dotson (euphonium), Anna Webber (tenor saxophone, flute, bass flute), John Hollenbeck (drums)
