Chris Forbes - Semjase (2024) [Hi-Res]

The roots of Semjase, my third studio trio album, are found in the extremely busy summer of 2022. Among the many albums recorded that summer was a sojourn with the Jack DeSalvo Quartet and a duo recording with Jack. As a result, I got to record a lot of pieces by Jack all at once. It was some of the best and most personal playing I did that summer, and I wanted to do more so when it was time to do another trio record, I floated the idea by Jack and the UR crew, and everyone was excited. Jack and I write very similarly and, in many ways, I feel more the pianist I want to be doing his work than I do even doing my own.

Jack has taken on a discipline of trying to write a tune a day for most of his adult life, so there is a lot to choose from. He picked five tunes he felt would suit me well and he wasn’t wrong. Jack does not write a typical jazz tune. The heads are often much more like Chopin or Brahms with well thought out inner voices and a sense of counterpoint rare in jazz. Semjase is one of his odd meter tunes but mercifully the solos are in regular meter. (I have been known to scream, “I hate seven” in odd meter solos.) Karatas is an example of Jack’s most Chopinesque work. The simple sounding lilting theme is full of hidden depth. Taking Plato at His Word maybe the heart of the album conceptually. One of the things I love about free improvisation is the sense of journey and adventure you get in it. In this lovely tune we don’t just “follow the changes” but we move unpredictably between solos, three-part counterpoint, accompanied drum solo and full-on free improv, all united by elements in Jack’s tune. The Constant of Nineveh is a tune in a synthetic scale of the kind loved by Scriabin, Shostakovich, Messiaen and even Monk. It gives the opportunity for the freest solos of the album. Finally, the Spindle of Necessity is a chord filled knuckle buster and yet if your ear is tuned can go just about anywhere.

This is my third outing with this trio, and I couldn’t be happier with it. While both Tom and Dmitry can lay down a stone-cold groove if needed, they both bring an equal voice to the proceedings and white-hot creativity.

Chris Forbes - Piano
Dmitry Ishenko - Double Bass
Tom Cabrera - Drums