Less than two years after
Avenging Angel, his solo
ECM debut, pianist
Craig Taborn returns with his longstanding trio of bassist
Thomas Morgan and drummer
Gerald Cleaver. Though they've not recorded together before, this group has been playing together for eight years and their individual ties to one another go back even further:
Taborn's and
Cleaver's for 25 years, since they were students at the University of Michigan.
Cleaver and
Morgan are members of
Tomasz Stanko's
New York Quartet, and the pianist and bassist to saxophonist
David Binney's group.
Chants is a unique piano trio recording in that
Taborn's compositions reflect the strength and elasticity of the ensemble, both formally and when engaged in improvisational conversation. He retains the sense of space inside the compositions offered on
Avenging Angel, but this set is also imbued with more motivic ideas placed inside darkly tinged compositions and angular, sometimes knotty lyric themes. And space plays a different role as an opening for spontaneous possibility. The lively "Beat the Ground" offers
Morgan's driving bassline as it underscores
Taborn's hard, left-turn, repetitive theme, and holds the center between pianist and drummer.
Cleaver's cymbal work provides the room when the pianist's theme shifts keys, time signatures, and accents. "Hot Blood," with its syncopated rhythmic interplay between
Cleaver and
Morgan, adds dimension to
Taborn's pulsing chords and opens up a vent for his complex solo. The elliptical "All True Night/Future Perfect" is the set's hinge piece. Commencing as a sketchy, shimmering ballad, with three gestured -- rather than firmly stated -- melodies in gauzy exchange, its dynamic builds gradually, culminating in
Taborn's arpeggio solo. The use of abstraction and space is far more pronounced on the record's second half with the gradual development in "Cracked Hearts."
Cleaver carves out a rhythmic statement that allows the melody to articulate itself. The interplay between
Morgan and
Taborn on "Silver Ghosts" is intuitive; their movement along the skeletal frame aims for the fringes of suggestion.
Cleaver's gentle but firm time-stretching exercise on toms and cymbals notches a corner for drama that culminates with beautiful ostinato from the pianist. Closer "Speak the Name," with its rumbling, low-end bass notes, middle-register lyric theme, and
Cleaver's roiling, break-driven snare is the impetus for dynamic and textural shifts for the entire group and offers the set's most labyrinthine piece as an uptempo closer.
Chants is a strong statement from
Taborn both as a composer and bandleader, but it's also a dialogue on the trio format itself, as articulated by this vastly talented, thought-provoking group. ~ Thom Jurek