Label: Palmetto Records, 2022

Personnel - Fred Hersch: piano; Esperanza Spalding: vocals.

Without major arrangements, this piano-voice duo recording captured live at New York's Village Vanguard, shows off the many musical qualities of Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding. The pair imbues most of the tunes with a quirky perspective and humor, but I felt this work more as an audience entertainment rather than an audio recording to be revisited.

Gershwin’s “But Not For Me” swings in rubato time with theatrical posture and a kind of jocularity in the words. Spalding’s vocal solo is followed by Hersch's contrapuntal notes professed in different registers of the piano. The musicians waste no time showing melodic agility on “Dream of Monk”, a tune with lyrics from the pianist, which had been previously included on his 2012 trio album Alive at the Vanguard (with bassist John Hébert and drummer Eric McPherson). Due to its nature, there’s an ample improvisational window turned into playful and intuitive interaction. Monk’s mysterious ways are evoked and exhaled at every breath with fluid changes of rhythm and intonation.

The homage to the iconic pianist of “Round Midnight” is intensified with a rendition of one of his tunes: “Evidence”, here made wondrous in detail by Hersch after a responsive introduction. The vocalist shines on the latter piece but finds new spaces on “Loro”, where the Brazilian folk complexities of its composer, Egberto Gismonti, is dismantled by an effortless communication with her accompanist. Their deep-seated instinct takes the form of a slinky celebration on Charlie Parker’s calypso-bop flavored “Little Suede Shoes”, where there’s an inclination for percussive extended techniques and the low registers.

“Girl Talk” is made rightfully critical by Spalding but didn’t catch my ear, just like “A Wish”, the discreet closing number penned by Hersch and Norma Winstone and firstly recorded in 2003 to be included on their duo album Songs & Lullabies.

Mostly traditionally low-key, this is an album to be played once, not twice… and here comes Monk again!

Favorite Tracks:
02 - Dream of Monk ► 05 - Evidence ► 07 - Loro

Label: Concord Records, 2021

Personnel - Esperanza Spalding: bass, vocals; Aaron Burnett: saxophone; Leo Genovese: piano; Matthew Stevens: guitar; Francisco Mela: drums + guests include: Corey King: vocals, acoustic guitar; Phoelix: synth, piano, vocals; Ganavya Doraiswamy: vocals (#1,2); Wayne Shorter: saxophone (#3); Thrive Choir, and more.

Esperanza Spalding - a wonderful bassist, vocalist and fusion experimenter - releases Sonwrights Apothecary Lab, a 12-track album with healing consciousness and conceived with a team of neuroscientists, ethnomusicologists and music therapists. The combination of exuberance, refinement and some eccentricity is on display, and the musicians that surround her are outstanding. Yet, not every track does that magic. There are moments of pure genius, especially on the second half of the record, contrasting with those not so interesting during the first.

Grappling with the recent stressful times, “Formwela 1” opens the record strongly, displaying layers of vocals, clever chromatic moves and natural falsetto singing. The bass lines fuse with the lyrics, and the piano adds more color to the setting with its pendulum-like movements before the Thrive Choir take us to a final sustained note that leads directly to the ethereal “Formwela 2”.

The three tunes featuring the singer/songwriter Corey King (Formwelas 4, 5 and 6) didn’t appeal to me significantly; one of them, in which he plays acoustic guitar, verges on folk-pop. The same indifference transpired on “Formwela 3”, whose contemporary theatrical spin comes mixed with shades of jazz standards and R&B, ending up with atonal lines delivered by saxophonist Wayne Shorter and the excited piano runs of Leo Genovese.

If I didn’t always feel that positive energy during this earlier part of the journey, then I was much more impressed with the last six pieces. “Formwela 7” surprises with offbeat rock impulses; the mantric 12-beat cycle chant “Formwela 8” works as an anxiety antidote in the spiritual line of Alice Coltrane; “Formwela 10” arrives in a lovely jazzy wrap that makes it uncompromisingly sensual; and then there’s “Formwela 9”, a protective amulet in which the group fearlessly explores extravagant territories. I love the singing here, the blistering avant-garde explosions, and when saxophonist Aaron Burnett and guitarist Matt Stevens work closer together.

The record might be uneven, but no one can deny the singularity of this music.

Favorite Tracks:
08 - Formwela 8 ► 09 - Formwela 9 ► 10 - Formwela 10