Quite often, jazz albums that favor an inside/outside approach start out with fairly accessible, less extreme material and later detour into avant-garde territory. But
Jon Escreet's
Consequences is a post-bop/avant-garde disc that does just the opposite. This diverse 2008 session gets off to a very abstract start before subsequently demonstrating that, even though
Escreet is quite comfortable with outside playing, the acoustic pianist/electric keyboardist is equally comfortable playing melodic post-bop.
Consequences (which is dominated by
Escreet's own compositions) opens with the 30-minute "The Suite of Consequence," an angular, difficult avant-garde piece that has some explosively
Cecil Taylor-ish moments. But if "The Suite of Consequence" inspires comparisons to
Taylor and
Marilyn Crispell,
Escreet has much more in common with
Kenny Barron and
Cedar Walton on the melodic post-bop offerings that follow: "Wayne's World" (which was obviously inspired by
Wayne Shorter compositionally) and "Dilemma." However,
Escreet returns to the avant-garde on the cerebral "Somewhere Between Dreaming and Sleeping," and he balances the inside and the outside on a performance of
Andrew Hill's "No Doubt" (the only piece on this 62-minute CD that he didn't write).
Consequences makes it clear that stylistically,
Escreet is not easy to pin down.
Escreet (who is joined by alto saxophonist
David Binney, trumpeter
Ambrose Akinmusire, bassist
Matt Brewer, and drummer
Tyshawn Sorey) appreciates
Taylor's abstraction, but he is also appreciative of pianists ranging from
Barron,
Walton,
Herbie Hancock, and
McCoy Tyner to
Hill,
Paul Bley, and
Thelonious Monk -- and the listeners who will get the most out of
Consequences are the ones who can enjoy listening to avant-garde jazz one minute and straight-ahead post-bop the next.
Escreet's versatility serves him well as both a pianist/keyboardist and a composer on
Consequences. ~ Alex Henderson