Label: Red Piano Records, 2020
Personnel - Gabe Terracciano: violin; Dave Pietro: alto saxophone; Ricky Rodriguez: trumpet; Adam Rogers: electric guitar; Matt Pavolka: bass; Mark Ferber: drums.
Gabe Terracciano is a Brooklyn-based, classically-trained violinist with a genre-spanning approach to music. On his debut recording, In Flight, you’ll find him exploring self-penned compositions with an all-star ensemble comprised of Dave Pietro on alto saxophone, Ricky Rodriguez on trumpet, Adam Rogers on electric guitar, Matt Pavolka on bass, and Mark Ferber on drums. The ensemble shrinks into either quintet or horn-less quartet on specific selections.
Definitely a highlight, the title track displays melodic flair and hard-charging rhythmic instinct, consolidating post-bop and Latin jazz. The piece wakes up from its inceptive calm and locks a clave-motivated intermediate passage in 15/8, over which the soloists, one after another, make emotionally punchy statements. Before returning to the placid tones of the beginning, the group embarks on a brief yet captivating collective improvisation that inspired me to search for more. Pity I didn’t find anything else that could compare to this absolute intensity.
The pieces delivered in the violin-guitar-bass-drums format include “Way Off”, a Joni Mitchell-inspired folkish song with a breezy harmonic texture, and “When I’m in Your Arms Once More”, a ballad whose melody denotes some similarities with “Darn That Dream” in the A section, and “Polka Dots and Moonbeans” in the B.
Pietro lends a hand on “Pundit”, where bass and guitar get locked in a relatively complex rhythmic phrase before changes in tempo and mood occur. The saxophonist’s presence is also noticed on “Case in Point”, where he adds post-bop testimony to the rocking rhythm made manifest. Rogers’ fluid lines on the guitar also wend through the harmonic lanes implied by Pavolka’s bass tours, and, at a later time, it's the guitarist’s comping that helps paving the way in support of Terracciano's riffing.
The group suffuses the atmosphere with straight-ahead energy on the closing “Alfie’s Lullaby”, a personal synthesis of Bernice Petkere’s Tin Pan Alley tune “Lullaby of the Leaves” and Oliver Nelson’s “Alfie’s Theme”. Sandwiched between the violin and guitar statements, Pietro and Rodriguez alternate bars with irrepressible ardency.
In Flight doesn’t go out or beyond the norms, but doesn’t hold back either.
Grade B
Favorite Tracks:
01 - In Flight ► 02 - Way Off ► 03 - Pundit