NYSQ - Sleight of Hand (WHIRLWIND RECORDINGS 2017)

It’s now approaching twelve years since the New York Standards Quartet (NYSQ) came into being, its core personnel taking time out from their multifarious individual projects to revel in the shared brief of refashioning familiar and lesser-known jazz standards. Their new release Sleight of Hand builds on their catalog of five previous album recordings (most recently, The New Straight Ahead and Power of 10, on Whirlwind) as saxophonist Tim Armacost, pianist David Berkman and drummer Gene Jackson welcome double bassist Daiki Yasukagawa back into the fold. 

Describing the NYSQ’s beginnings, David Berkman recalls: “We were at the period where we’d all done a lot of original recordings of our own music, as composers and leaders; and then, through a series of circumstances, we came together as a quartet with the particular mission of taking on standards, but arranging them to create a feeling that was similar to the original albums we recorded. It soon became apparent that audiences really got into the idea and the fun of seeing how we would expand the harmonic, tonal and rhythmic aspects into a more modern frame while always referencing the music’s origins.” 

This is a band that regularly plays and performs together, so there’s a common bond which brings out the best in the arrangements they conjure. Recorded at the end of an international tour – in the beautiful, mountainous location of Lake Yamanaka, close to Mount Fuji (the quartet enjoys a special affinity with Japan) – Sleight of Hand’s eight numbers reflect the band’s spontaneous, transformational approach, with the title track (based on Gershwin’s ‘But Not For Me’) irresistibly playful. 

Mal Waldron’s ‘Soul Eyes’ and Thelonious Monk’s ‘Ask Me Now’ swing with respective vibrancy and jauntiness, while the metrical changes and perky rhythms of ‘This I Dig of You’ pick up on Hank Mobley’s classic Blue Note album origins; and the various key modulations in ‘Lover Man’ are a world away from Billie Holiday’s lingering vocal lines as Armacost’s spritely soprano responds swiftly to Jackson’s syncopated drum accents. 

1940s song ‘Detour Ahead’ – perhaps mostly familiar in composer Herb Ellis’s guitar setting – translates into a luscious alto and piano-led ballad, sensitively buoyed by Yasukagawa’s bass shaping; Jules Styne/Sammy Cahn favorite ‘I Fall In Love Too Easily’ is treated to sparkling, percussion-led animation; and Armacost’s rich tenor lyricism in Duke Ellington’s ‘In a Sentimental Mood’ is ravishingly restrained. 

David Berkman relates that the NYSQ’s journey continues to energize them: “Going into the recording studio is still as challenging as it is enjoyable, though I guess we feel like we don’t need to prove anything anymore! And though we like to pull out obscure tunes, it’s also important to include touchstones for our listeners, as everyone relates to them emotionally – there’s still a lot of awareness there. These are such great melodies, you can do almost anything with them – and, as always with improvisation, that sense of ‘What’s happening today?’ remains exciting. It’s all about a moment.”

1. Soul Eyes 09:28

2. Ask Me Now 07:38

3. In a Sentimental Mood 03:29

4. Sleight of Hand 07:54

5. I Fall in Love too Easily 05:33

6. This I Dig of You 07:48

7. Detour Ahead 08:04

8. Lover Man 07:41

Tim Armacost - tenor, soprano saxophones

David Berkman - piano

Daiki Yasukagawa - double bass

Tim Armacost - Time Being (WHIRLWIND RECORDINGS 2017)

Tim Armacost - tenor saxophone

Robert Hurst - double bass

Jeff 'Tain' Watts - drums

David Kikoski - piano

Armacost, tell a fascinating tale. A marquee player on the New York and Japanese scenes for many years, with an extensive discography and countless live and recorded collaborations to his name in the US, Europe and Asia (including the New York Standards Quartet recordings on this label), the clear direction for Time Being arrived, remarkably, out of the blue.

As Armacost elaborates: “I pictured myself playing Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman in the studio with a trio – double bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts. Tain was, in terms of time signature, out on his own, and Bob and I were communicating with each other independently of what he was playing. But what Tain was doing was so incredibly attractive – so fiery and so beautiful – that we both really wanted to go over and be part of that; yet we already had this thing that we had to do together. That whole idea of people relating to each other in the time, but in a non-traditional way, and creating tension which would eventually be resolved by them going over to play together, was something I’d never tried before – and the concept was really exciting. To achieve this, technology might have been the answer. But in the end, we decided to record in Tain’s studio, in an intimate live environment with no separation” (occasional left/right panning helps with the visualisation). “So for my compositions and arrangements, I needed to imagine the ideas happening in real time; and fortunately, with Tain and Bob on board – some of the most swinging musicians on the planet – there was a great, combined willingness for exploration, to make it happen.” Joining the trio on selected tracks is pianist David Kikoski, providing elegant, rippling color to numbers such as ‘The Next 20’ and ‘One and Four’.

Through the dedication of these accomplished artists, such a challenging brief has evolved into a project which is incredibly organic, purposeful and sumptuously swinging. The three ‘Sculptures’ on the album are very much an expression of this structured experimentation. ‘Phase Shift’ is modelled on an ‘X’ formation, as Armacost and Watts converge along the left tempo pathways, with Hurst on the right until saxophonist and bassist change places (an E flat to C piano key-change marks the crossover point) – technical in construction, but an exhilarating listen. In ‘Tempus Funkit’, Armacost independently visits the rhythms of drummer and bassist; and the particle-like conflict of ‘All The Things You Could Become In The Large Hadron Collider’ (based on ‘All The Things You Are’) is also a playful reference to Charles Mingus’ ‘All The Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother’.

‘Lonely Woman’ – the seed of this album which germinated so many possibilities – features a call-and-response between tenor and bass (with each saying, “Check out the way I’m playing the melody”), initiating their own improvisations until the drums home in on the bassist (as Tim puts it, “He can’t resist”). So the differing musical tensions are intentionally part of the unplanned dialogue present throughout this recording. In title track ‘Time Being’, the trio divides when tenor moves to a different tempo, with Hurst following, and Watts reaching them later – as Armacost enthuses: “When we all come back together, the pay-off is really delicious!” Pacey ’53rd Street’ is inspired by the blues melody of Thelonious Monk’s ’52nd Street’; there’s a fine, percussively buoyant interpretation of Monk’s ‘Teo’; and feisty, original composition ‘Alawain’ says so much about this trio’s collective, impassioned spirit.

Tim Armacost describes the session as being playful, wild and serious: “It has been a real source of joy, for me, to see such open musicians willing to make an attempt at something we’ve never done before; and especially when things got kinda interesting, and we started smiling – that was a really special, even relaxed experience. I hope that, although this has a demanding concept at its roots, listeners can pick up on its lyrical, singing qualities. The audience is very much part of the conversation – we’re doing this thing together, and we invite you in… to have fun!”

01. Alawain

02. Time Being

03. Sculpture #1 – Phase Shift

04. The Next 20

05. Teo

06. Sculpture #2 – Tempus Funkit

07. One and Four

08. Lonely Woman

09. 53rd St. Theme

10. Sculpture #3 – All the Things You Could Become in the Large Hadron Collider

Recorded by Derek Nievergelt with Glen Forrestat ​at Sanctuary Studios, Easton, PA (Dec, 2016)

Mixed & Mastered by Katsuhiko Naito (Avatar Studios, NYC)

Produced by Tim Armacost

​Executive Producer - Michael Janisch