“Reincarnation Blues” is a Wayne Shorter deep cut, from Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ Buhaina’s Delight (1963), where it’s played at a fairly quick tempo. Tyshawn Sorey’s version on Continuing, his second outing with trio partners Aaron Diehl (piano) and Matt Brewer (bass), is a study in slow groove, allowing the harmonic contour of Shorter’s piece to fully unfold. The standard “Angel Eyes,” one of the great minor-key ballads, finds Sorey again taking the tempo down to the basement, so Diehl can let the deliciously eerie melody linger. It’s preceded by a non-ballad reading of Ahmad Jamal’s “Seleritus,” bouncier than Jamal’s 1954 original, with a deliberate nod to the “Poinciana” groove that Jamal became known for in ’58. “In What Direction Are You Headed,” composed by the late piano master Harold Mabern (and performed by Mabern on Lee Morgan’s final album Last Session), is the funky, open-ended closer, another deep discographical dive, full of fire, harmonic searching, and brilliant improvisation.
- 2024
- Henry Threadgill
- Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith
- James Brandon Lewis & Red Lily Quintet
- Steve Lehman & Orchestre National de Jazz
- Will Vinson, Gilad Hekselman & Nate Wood