Gebbia Goodheart & Powell – “Zen Winter” – [Evander Music]

Like starting a sentence mid-thoughr. These are the improvised pieces of Matthew Goodheart, Gianni Gebbia and Garth Powell. Tracks range from 17 seconds to 8 minutes. The shorter tracks are like miniature almost free jazz. They come and go so swiftly..like a fleeting, unfinished thought that escapes your mind as quickly as it entered. This album contains a lot of sounds.. such a statement may normally seem painfully redundant, but in this case it holds relevance. Populating these frequencies are clicks and scrapes of a prepared piano. The honk and skronk of a horn or a sax. The rat-at-tat of restless fingers pushing buttons and blowing air. Reedy quacks. The sweeping and shimmering drop of piano keys. Reactionary, percussive meanderings. The resonance of a ringing bell, or the flutter of a flute. And is that a squeaky toy I hear? (#9, 12)… Relative to other improvised jazz, this music is rather gentle (depending on the calibration of your ears that is.. ). The music here is conversational, interlocking, musical and no-so-musical,consistently executed with an artful and knowing use of dynamics. Here is an exploration in composition, improvisation, soundscaping and lack of arrangement. Whether you are in search of the somewhat tangible or the entirely abstract…look no further. -Surfer Rosa