The Susceptible Now

ピューリッツァー賞を受賞した現代NYシーンが誇る最高峰ドラマー、タイショーン・ソーリーが率いる2024年ピアノトリオ作品。マッコイ・タイナー「Peresina」、ジョニ・ミッチェル「A Chair in the Sky」、ブラッド・メルドー「Bealtine」等をカバーした作品。

After being awarded a 2024 Pulitzer Prize for his composition "Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith)," the Tyshawn Sorey Trio issues Susceptible Now. Following directly from 2023s Continuing, this four-track set is composed of four covers played in an unbroken sequence over 80 minutes. The recording puts Soreys collaborations with pianist Aaron Diehl at four albums, while the seemingly ubiquitous Harish Raghavan appears on double bass. These are exceptionally creative readings of jazz tunes and a radical reinterpretation of a charting R&B single by vocal group Vividry. Sorey employs his signature deconstruction method, extracting, re-ordering, and recontextualizing various sections in the originals, while simultaneously rearranging them into elaborate, constantly mutating forms. The opener is McCoy Tyners "Peresina" (from Expansions). Tyner recorded it with a star-studded septet that included Wayne Shorter, Gary Bartz, and Woody Shaw. The original begins with a modal Afro-Latin melody that skitters in tempo before the horns enter. Tyners piano moves from balladry to hard bop to modalism in its various sections. In the 15-plus-minute TST reading, Diehl offers the intro changes in lush, elegant, balladic form before Raghavan, playing a nearly lyric bass pattern, enters with Soreys brushes and mallets moving the changes without being intrusive. As it evolves, the dynamic shifts. Raghavan and Sorey become more forceful and Diehls chord voicings spur a more intense trio conversation amid more strident interplay and rhythmic intensity. Its followed immediately by a 22-minute version of Joni Mitchells and Charles Mingus "Chair in the Sky." The original opens with a spectral electric piano adorned with fretless bass. Here, Diehl separates the individual notes to form new chords from the instruments lower and middle registers. The space for Mitchells lyrics is claimed by a gorgeous double bass solo. When Sorey enters, the engagement becomes a flowing narrative. Lightness and elegance become their own forms of luxuriant intensity over a labyrinthine 22 minutes populated with shifting dynamics, tones, and motifs via a three-chord vamp. It all segues into "Your Good Lies" by Vividry. The original is a sophisticated contemporary soul number with gorgeous vocals. The single shimmies up to jazz without crossing over. The trio introduces the melodic framework, but move off almost immediately, exploring the tunes harmonic roots across tempo, key changes, and structural cadences in an organic process. They move effortlessly into epic post-bop exploration for over 26 minutes. "Bealtine," by Brad Mehldau, closes the set. Where the original is breezy, kinetic, lyrically engaged post-bop, Diehl intros with elegiac, nearly processional chords. Soreys inventive tom-tom work introduces Raghavan as the trio come together, upping tempo, dynamic, and drama in Diehls wonderfully complex solo wherein melody, while never absent, is extrapolated as harmonic invention and exchange with the bassist and the drummer cutting through post-bop, Latin jazz, bluesy modalism, and even funky hard bop. The musical language TST further developed and articulated on Susceptible Now is sophisticated, surprisingly accessible, and perhaps even timeless. ~ Thom Jurek