Pianist
Ethan Iverson joins with esteemed players bassist
Larry Grenadier and drummer
Jack DeJohnette for their artful 2022 trio album
Every Note Is True. An exceedingly adept improviser at home with jazz standards as well as his own inventive originals,
Iverson is best known as a founding member of the boundary-pushing trio
the Bad Plus, which he left in 2017. Where that group garnered acclaim for their adventurous jazz reworkings of modern rock and pop tunes,
Iverson's solo work has been somewhat more nuanced. He has regularly moved between his love of atmospheric, classical-influenced avant-garde jazz (as he did on 2018's
Temporary Kings with
Mark Turner) and straight-ahead acoustic post-bop (as with 2021's
Bud Powell in the 21st Century). With
Every Note Is True, he explores both with original compositions that also evoke the broad-stroke style of his time with
the Bad Plus. There's a surprising wryness to the album, best expressed by the opening "The More It Changes." A warm group vocal ballad led by
Iverson with lyrics by his wife, writer Sarah Deming, it has the poignant warmth of friends at a party all gathered around a piano to commune over a beloved song. Other equally intimate instrumental moments follow, including a sparkling rendition of
DeJohnette's "Blue" and
Iverson's slow-churning hymn "The Eternal Verities," both of which evoke
DeJohnette's own work for
ECM in the '70s and early '80s. More exuberant tracks follow, including two bluesy, hard-swinging
Thelonious Monk-esque numbers in "Merely Improbable" and "At the Bells and Motley." Primarily,
Every Note Is True is a showcase for
Iverson's warm camaraderie with his veteran collaborators. ~ Matt Collar