Label: Cygnus Recordings, 2022
Personnel - Dan Weiss: drums; Jacob Sacks: piano; Thomas Morgan: bass.
The inventive drummer/composer Dan Weiss joins forces with two other creative musicians - pianist Jacob Sacks and bassist Thomas Morgan - for an album of dedications that consists entirely of original pieces. The deep understanding between these musicians, who have been playing together for 22 years, manifests on every track as they explore an array of quirky moods and undiscovered spaces.
Honoring the founder/vocalist of the unique, eclectic UK rock band Cardiacs, “For Tim Smith” reveals an appetence for polyrhythm, radical transitions, odd-meter sequences, and complex juxtapositions. In the end, you have an organically solid number that is also fun to listen to. Extremely challenging is also “For Nancarrow”, whose eruptive experimentalism pronounced with an underlying swinging motion made me think of a musical crossing between Tony Williams and Pierre Schaeffer. A mysterious opaqueness permeates the whole thing. There are crashing cymbals producing strange accents and exquisite piano runs elaborated with keen virtuosity.
Sacks is exalted with a piece. “For Jacob” is explorative, galvanizing, jazzy and avant-gardish; filled with coiled forms and transient flurries. In turn, “For Andrei Tarkovsky” (Weiss’ favorite filmmaker) shimmers like a delicate torch. It's impeccably synchronized and offers the playful clatter of an unforseen samba rhythm.
“For George Floyd” is filled with silences, tonal contrasts, dissonances, and striking motions; “For Elvin” has Weiss altering the speed of Elvin Jones’ pulse on Coltrane’s “One Down, One Up” from the album Live at the Half Note. Whereas he swings vividly here, he brushes the drums with elegance on the arpeggiated “For Grandma May”, demonstrating his love for his late grandmother.
Undeniably virtuosic and progressive, Weiss works in unconventional ways. This program relies on curious musical architectures that make us experience freedom while constantly waiting for surprises. And they never fail to appear.
Favorite Tracks:
03 - For Nancarrow ► 05 - For Jacob ► 08 - For Elvin