This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 9/20-9/22

NOTES ON A SMALL’S LIVE STREAM:

JULIETA EUGENIO with Marta Sanchez, Matt Dwonszyk, and Steven Krammer, SMALL’S JAZZ CLUB, 5 SEPTEMBER 2024, 10:30 pm set

By Kim Kleinman, Contributing Writer

Fritz framed his essay on the best jazz albums of 2022 around Julieta Eugenio’s Jump, an astonishing tenor/bass/drums date that, as he put it,
hints of saxophonists across the whole history of the music, from Coleman Hawkins through Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson to Chris Potter and Joshua Redman. All that, and more, in a performance of sustained brilliance that is entirely Julieta’s own, whether she’s trading rhythmic conceits with Jonathan [Barber] or playing hide-and-go-seek with the harmonies Matt [Dwonszyk] suggests.

Fritz adds her to a conversation about the saxophone/bass/drums trio that began for both of us as listeners with Sonny Rollins’s A Night at the Village Vanguard.  But we have also treasured Lee Konitz’s Motion, Joe Henderson’s State of the Tenor, and Ornette Coleman’s At the Golden Circle as examples of favorite saxophonists performing without the frame of a chordal instrument.  Besides Eugenio, I have been impressed with Nicole Glover, whose current working trio consists of bassist Tyrone Allen and drummer Kayvon Gordon.  She has her own serious breadth like that Fritz cites above for Eugenio and we have had several virtual barstool discussions trying to identify each’s influences.
Glover’s first trio was very busy and she played just as furiously, but with Allen and Gordon she too has given herself some space to let her ideas develop more patiently.  Eugenio’s recent gig was, despite Marta Sanchez’s significant contributions to two band tunes and a sumptuous duet, still primarily a trio set drawing on material from Jump and its successor, Stay.

Her tone throughout was light, her playing linear and melodic.  Even with Dwonszyk and Krammer churning behind her, though not necessarily all that loudly, she is deliberate and thoughtful.  With Sanchez, particularly on the duet, she played a little deeper, a little mellower.  There’s a wistfulness to her playing that is very appealing.  Open and poignant, she is fully in command of her horn, her band, and her vision for her music.
The addition of Sanchez is an intriguing development.  She too is quite comfortable playing with an active, churning rhythm section finding ample ways to make tough, beautiful statements.  Dwonszyk has been a fixture in this band, and his riffs and lines help shape the tunes.  Jump and Stay relied on Jonathan Barber’s sophisticated drumming, so I missed him here.  But Steven Krammer brought his own magic with layers of intricacy inside an insistent pulse.  He churned and pushed his bandmates, but was not overpowering in any way.
Together they all contributed to another exciting extension of Julieta Eugenio’s aesthetic.