Dave Pietro is an A-list reed player who works in the finest jazz orchestras (Maria Schneider, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Ryan Truesdell). He has released eight of his own albums since 1996. With the last two, New Road: Iowa Memoirs and Hypersphere, he has emerged as a leader of importance.
Both records feature trumpeter Alex Sipiagin, keyboardist Gary Versace, bassist Johannes Weidenmueller, drummer Johnathan Blake, and percussionist Rogério Bocatto. Hypersphere adds trombonist Ryan Keberle. Versace, Blake, and Keberle are Pietro's colleagues in Schneider's band. Like Schneider, he uses superior players to bring his inspired compositions and well-crafted arrangements to life.
Pietro's charts achieve remarkable breadth and depth from a three-horn front line. The three-part counterpoint of "Kakistocracy" crashes and careens. On the title track, shifting meters and key centers suggest how unsettled our present moment feels. But Pietro also blends melodic color and harmonic texture to make affirmations, like "Gina," a love song for his wife.
Once a composition has established its emotional domain, Pietro releases it for elaboration by the band's exceptional soloists, starting with himself. On his primary instrument, alto saxophone, his outbreaks of singing, piercing, passionate lyricism embody complex messages. On "Boulder Snowfall," inspired by a winter landscape, Pietro's enormous improvisation grows turbulent. Even if he had not told us in liner notes that he was thinking of modern man's precarious relationship to nature, we would have felt it. — Thomas Conrad (stereophile.com)
1. Kakistocracy 07:45
2. Boulder Snowfall 07:00
3. Gina 06:02
4. Hypersphere 06:20
5. Incandescent 07:12
6. Quantum Entanglement 04:52
7. Tales of Mendacity 07:07
8. Orison 05:35
Dave Pietro: saxophones, flute, compositions, arrangements
