Widely
acknowledged as a modern master in the aftermath of his acclaimed 2012 Mack
Avenue debut, The Bespoke Man's Narrative, 29-year-old pianist/composer Aaron
Diehl ups the ante with the 2015 release: Space Time Continuum.
Diehl
first documented his inclusive, across-the-timeline conception on the
self-released late ʼ00s albums Live At Caramoor, a solo date on which he
navigated the stride piano canon with deep assurance, and Live At the Players,
on which he applied a broad lexicon of piano trio vocabulary to a program
spanning classical music, bebop and the blues. On The Bespoke Man's Narrative,
Diehl presented original music drawing on antecedent bandleader/composers like
John Lewis and Duke Ellington for strategies that facilitated individualistic performances
from his unit of A-list peers.
On Space
Time Continuum, an eight-piece program, Diehl assembles a pan-generational
ensemble of masters. Joining his core trio of bassist David Wong and drummer
Quincy Davis, in different configurations, are the iconic tenor
saxophonist-composer Benny Golson and the magisterial baritone saxophonist Joe
Temperley, both 85 years young; the 39-year-old underground tenor saxophone
giant Stephen Riley; and the rising star trumpeter Bruce Harris.
It's
important to use both contemporaries and elders as sources of
inspiration," Diehl says. He is particularly pleased at "the
opportunity to play and improvise with living legends" Golson and
Temperley. Diehl met Golson in 2009, when Juilliard School of Music--Diehl's alma
mater--commissioned the veteran to compose a work entitled "Above and
Beyond" in celebration of the school's centennial. Two years later, they
performed together at the Lincoln Theater in Columbus, Ohio, Diehl's hometown.
"Mr.
Golson has been inspirational beyond the legacy of music he's created,"
Diehl states. "Carpe diem while he and Joe Temperley are still
around."
The leader
pairs off Golson and Harris on "Organic Consequence," a discursive,
multi-sectional work for quintet, and "Space Time Continuum," Diehl's
notes-and-tones response to a lyric by vocalist (and Mack Avenue artist) Cécile
McLorin Salvant, with whom he works extensively as pianist and musical
director.
"I
gave Mr. Golson a solo section with a specific set of chord changes,"
Diehl says of the former piece. "In rehearsal, he wasn't fond of playing
the progression and offered constructive criticism that led to our finding an
alternative harmonic movement that suited his needs. He taught me the
importance of leaning towards people's strengths, and it was beautiful to see
Bruce fit in perfectly in playing directly alongside him."
The
magnificent singer Charenee Wade adds a third voice to the dialogue on the
title track, challenging in its form and harmonic movement, on which Diehl
"pieces together isolated sections with drum breaks." He continues:
"I thought it would be fascinating to see how Charenee would interpret a
tune by two artists with whom she's worked and is familiar."
Temperley's
feature, "The Steadfast Titan," is a Billy Strayhorn-esque ballad
with a memorable melody that suits the baritone sax legend's tonal personality
like a custom suit. "I wanted to capture his huge sound, and celebrate his
longevity in music," Diehl says. "He's the kind of person I
admire-doing one thing for so many years and having such belief in it. I hope
to do that with the piano."
Riley's
smooth sound, subtlety and lightning-like ability to weave through harmony
comes through on the brisk quartet track "Flux Capacitor," an older
Diehl original (the reference is to the device that "made time travel
possible" in the film Back To The Future, the sequel to which takes place
in 2015), and on "Kat's Dance," a breathe-as-one Riley-Diehl duo
treatment of a waltz composed by pianist Adam Birnbaum. "Adam's ideas are
always melodic," Diehl says. "This piece presented nice pianistic
challenges in presenting the melodic voice with certain fingers and providing
harmonic support and bass movement in others."
Indeed,
for all the instrumental derring-do from Diehl's cohort on the performances on
Space Time Continuum, the leader's virtuoso command of the piano is notable.
(The instrument is a well-wrought Fazioli F-228 Grand.) Consider, if you will,
the classical chops, impeccable touch and swinging conception that Diehl
displays on the anthemic "Santa Maria," which he composed in 2012 on
a commission from the Columbus Foundation to celebrate the bicentennial of his
Ohio hometown.
"This
isn't necessarily a 'pianistic' album," Diehl says. "But hopefully a
noticeable development from The Bespoke Man's Narrative is my investigation of
more linear forms of playing (i.e., bebop and hard-bop) that can fluidly
express the harmony."
The fruits
of Diehl's researches are apparent on two trio tracks. His warp-speed original
"Broadway Boogie-Woogie," evocative of Bud Powell at his most
demonic, is a tone parallel to Piet Mondrian's painting of that name in New
York's Museum of Modern Art, where Diehl premiered the piece. And he uncorks a
rollicking, deeply swinging treatment of the set-opening "Uranus," a
memorable melody by Walter Davis, Jr., one of the greatest of Powell's
acolytes, associated with various editions of Art Blakey and the Jazz
Messengers.
Diehl
discovered the latter tune from bassist Paul Sikivie and drummer Lawrence
Leathers, also colleagues of long-standing. They themselves learned
"Uranus" from drummer Kenny Washington, who learned it when he played
with Davis during the latter '70s, and became familiar with it on numerous gigs
with pianist Johnny O'Neal, who played it during an '80s run with the Jazz
Messengers.
That
opening salvo sets the tone for the trans-generational dialog that informs the
entirety of Space Time Continuum. Diehl, who chooses words as carefully as
notes, sums up his intentions: "I understand the jazz language as a
continuum--threading together the evolution of jazz as a continual,
interrelated stream of development to create a sound that's neither old or new,
but simply a landscape where we could all communicate."
Upcoming
Performance Schedule for Aaron Diehl Trio
May 8 /
Fisher Center at Bard College / Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
June 12 -
14 / Ginny's Supper Club / New York, NY
June 23
& 24 / Rochester Jazz Festival / Rochester, NY
July 17 /
Umbria Jazz Festival / Perugia, Italy
July 25 /
Schloss-Elmau (solo piano) / Krün, Germany
August 2 /
Newport Jazz Festival / Newport, RI
August 10
/ Jazz in Marciac / Marciac, France
August 21
/ The Tabernacle / Martha's Vineyard, MA
Upcoming
Performance Schedule with Cécile McLorin Salvant
April 17 /
Frostburg State University / Frostburg, MD
April 18 /
Jazz Club at Jefferson Center / Roanoke, VA
April 28 /
City Opera House / Traverse City, MI
April 29 /
Wharton Center for the Performing Arts / East Lansing, MI
May 1 /
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival / New Orleans, LA
May 2 /
Sheldon Concert Hall / St. Louis, MO
Aaron
Diehl ·
Space Time Continuum
Mack
Avenue Records · Release Date: June 16, 2015
MORGAN HERITAGE - STRICTLY ROOTS
