Ethan Iverson Trio

Ethan Iverson Trio

Ethan Iverson - piano
John Geggie - bass
Nick Fraser - drums

ETHAN IVERSON

There are a number of elements on Technically Acceptable, the second Blue Note Records release from pianist/composer Ethan Iverson, that would feel equally at home during any point in the label’s storied history. There’s an ample helping of the blues, a tune built on rhythm changes, spirited trio interactions, a reimagined song from the hit parade, even a rendition of Thelonious Monk’s iconic “‘Round Midnight.”

This being an Ethan Iverson date, however, none of those classic idioms are revived without a twist of some kind. The album’s first half, a nearly LP-length trio outing with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Kush Abadey, is balanced on the back end by the first-ever piano sonata in the Blue Note catalog. The blues and rhythm changes are refracted through an irreverent contemporary lens, while the standard in question is the Robert Flack ballad “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” given a 60s pop vibe in partnership with bassist Simón Willson and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza. 

And that version of “‘Round Midnight?” It features another Blue Note first, a theremin in the role of the main melodic instrument courtesy of virtuoso pianist and multi-instrumentalist Rob Schwimmer.

“I'm interested in trying to wrangle these almost archaic forms in a modernist way,” Iverson explains. “When I play a 12-bar blues with Thomas and Kush, it doesn't sound like 1944 in the slightest. It sounds like 2023. But at the same time, it is a serious throwback. That's where I connect to someone like Jaki Byard, who could play the most up-to-date creative music with Eric Dolphy or play behind a blues singer and be totally comfortable. And when he played solo or trio, it all came out at once.”

The history-spanning wealth of influences and eras that Iverson has investigated as pianist, composer and critic all emerge, in often surprising and delightful ways, throughout Technically Acceptable. Released just over 30 years since Iverson’s 1993 debut School Work, the album is, in a sense, three albums in one. The first third comprises a set of new originals with Morgan and Abadey, Iverson’s new working trio, who will celebrate the record release with a run at the legendary Village Vanguard and a tour of Europe.

In the past Iverson has used his leader dates as a way to connect with and learn from elders like Billy Hart and Jack DeJohnette. For the first time he’s working solely with younger musicians, who find ample space for freewheeling invention even within the concise forms of these short tunes, whose pop-like precision harkens back to his days with The Bad Plus.

“The Bad Plus’ music was very tightly constructed,” Iverson says. “We really knew how to reach an audience in a different way. Live we’ll inevitably stretch out, but I myself enjoy tunes that you can't stop listening to for the duration of the piece.”

That’s certainly true of the album’s infectious opener, “Conundrum,” which the composer posits as the theme song for an imaginary game show. (He hasn’t figured out the rules, but he’s willing to work with interested producers.) That’s followed by the angular jump blues of “Victory is Assured (Alla Breve)” which takes us back to Kansas City by way of the post-war avant-garde. “It’s Fine To Decline” is an even more abstracted blues, while the title track plays over rhythm changes with an almost Cubist range of perspective. 

“Who Are You, Really?” appends a Dexter Gordon quote to a joyously catchy tune that dances around Morgan’s robust bass line, and “The Chicago Style” embeds at least one chord from composer Ralph Shapey into an exploratory excursion that feels almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the Windy City experiments of the AACM and others. The blissful, upward gaze of “The Way Things Are” ends this segment with Iverson’s shruggingly accepting take on the Serenity Prayer.

The following three tunes feature Willson, Sperrazza and Schwimmer, Iverson’s compatriots on projects with the Mark Morris Dance Group. Their experience on “The Look of Love,” choreographed to Iverson’s arrangements of Burt Bacharach’s music (given the imprimatur of the late songwriter himself), infuses the trio’s “Killing Me Softly.” Iverson first heard the song not via Flack’s classic hit but in a jazz rendition by Hampton Hawes – his own take splits the difference. A similarly velvety feel cushions Iverson’s wistful “The Feeling Is Mutual.” In between comes the startling duo of Iverson’s piano and Schwimmer’s keening theremin on Monk’s immortal piece, in a version like none of the countless others.

The album concludes with Iverson’s first Piano Sonata, a through-composed, three-movement piece constructed from the composer’s era-fusing jazz vocabulary. In describing the piece, Iverson details a history of 20th century American classical music that left behind the innovations of Gershwin, Copland and James P. Johnson for “hardcore modernism” of Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt and then the severe minimalism of Philip Glass and Steve Reich.

“Gershwin, Copland and Johnson really tried to blend concert and vernacular idioms,” he explains. “Then after World War II, high modernism and then relatively simple minimalism ruled the roost, and that mix got shunted aside. In my humble way, I'm trying to pick up that 1930’s thread.”

In the process, through a repertoire that alights on myriad points on the jazz and classical timelines in playful yet inventive ways, Iverson allows himself the credential that christens the album. “If I'm taking the measure of my own work: I'm on a journey, but I don't think it's finished yet. My first album was called School Work; maybe in another ten years I’ll create the album Flawless Masterpiece. For now, I’m Technically Acceptable.”

JOHN GEGGIE

Double bassist John Geggie is an internationally established performer, composer and educator. He studied at Indiana University with Lawrence Hurst and Bruce Bransby and his jazz studies included work with David Baker, Gary Peacock, Palle Danielsson and Anders Jormin. As a performer, he works frequently with the NAC Orchestra and Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra. Current projects include the John Geggie Trio (with Roddy Ellias and Joel Frahm) as well as Steve Boudreau's collaborative trio with Michel Delage. For 13 years, he programmed, curated and performed in his own invitational ‘Geggie Series’ at the NAC Fourth Stage. He has hosted the Ottawa Jazz Festival Late Night Jam Series for over 20 years. He has performed with Craig Taborn, Bill Carrothers, Ted Nash, Donny McCaslin, Ben Monder, Cuong Vu, Billy Hart, Mark Dresser and Marcus Printup.  Mr. Geggie has composed works (St. Andrew's Vibrations and Paraphrase) which were premiered by Thirteen Strings - his present commissions include works for brass quintet and a suite of pieces for a string quartet including double bass. John Geggie is on faculty at Carleton University, at the Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam and the Conservatoire de Musique de Gatineau.

NICK FRASER

Nick Fraser has been an active and engaging presence in the Toronto new jazz and improvised music community since he moved there from Ottawa in 1995. He has worked with a veritable "who's who" of Canadian jazz and improvised music. In addition, he has had the opportunity to perform and/or record with such international artists as Tony Malaby, Kris Davis, Marilyn Crispell, Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Jean-Luc Ponty, Bela Fleck, Dave Liebman, and David Binney. Nick's recorded works as a leader include Owls in Daylight (1997), Nick Fraser and Justin Haynes are faking it (2004), Towns and Villages (2013) and If There Were No Opposites (2021).

For 10 years, he co-led the co-operative group Drumheller with Brodie West, Rob Clutton, Eric Chenaux and Doug Tielli, who released four critically acclaimed CDs between 2005 and 2013. Other projects that occupy Nick regularly are Ugly Beauties (with Marilyn Lerner and Matt Brubeck), Peripheral Vision, the Lina Allemano Four and Titanium Riot.

"Fraser not so much plays the drums as hurls himself whole body and soul against skin and metal... truly talented." 
Bill Stunt, CBC Radio.

"The young Toronto drummer is perhaps a little too progressive for the hidebound Canadian scene... Fraser is a deft and sensitive percussionist with a hint of an enigmatic streak, a feeling for economical gestures, and an innate sense of form." 
Mark Miller, The Globe & Mail

"Fraser can swing hard when necessary, but he’s equally a colorist with all manner of unusual tricks up his sleeve. Placing cymbals on the drums and pushing on them while striking them created a sound akin to a water gongs. His brushwork was impeccable, asserting time while, at the same time, creating richer texture. His solos were clearly focused on the musical rather than macho displays of dexterity—though in order to do what he does, it’s clear that he possesses all kinds of technical facility." 
-John Kelman, All About Jazz