Dahveed Behroozi: Echos
Sunnyside Records

On this long-gestating follow-up to his 2012 debut, the live trio set Games, West Coast-based pianist Dahveed Behroozi (b. 1981) offers a fresh and original take on the piano trio genre. Eschewing a standard rhythm-based approach, he, bassist Thomas Morgan, and drummer Billy Mintz embrace a free-flowing style that's, as Behroozi himself says, “centred on sound rather than structure.” Facilitating that, the pianist brought sketches to the studio sessions instead of formally mapped-out compositions, and even further his bandmates saw those sketches for the first time at the studio. Echos documents each player's visceral, in-the-moment responses during the two January 2019 days the trio spent at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, New York, and bolstering the intimacy of their interplay is the fact that the three recorded in the studio room with no barriers separating them.

Adopting such an approach can't help but bolster spontaneity, and consequently the nine atmospheric settings exude an unscripted character. It also requires players equipped to take on the challenge, and certainly all three possess the requisite skills to do so. Behroozi, for example, was trained in both jazz and classical (how fitting that two of his teachers were Fred Hersch and Ursula Oppens), and both are drawn upon in performances that transcend simple categorization: whereas the music's elegance and impressionistic quality aligns it to classical, its live, improvisatory feel connects it to jazz. Having recorded with figures such as Paul Motian, Bill Frisell, and Tomasz Stanko, Morgan brings invaluable experience to any session, and Mintz can similarly boast of having played with Alan Broadbent, Mark Feldman, and others. Of particular note is the fact that Behrooz, Morgan, and Mintz have a shared history that extends back years and includes dates at New York clubs, all such meetings figuring heavily into their interactions on Echos.

Not surprisingly, the very sound of their playing is one of the recording's key attractions. The clarity and resonance of the Steinway piano, the painterly splash and shimmer of Mintz's cymbals, and deep resonance of Morgan's note choices—all such aspects amplify the colouristic dimension of the performances. A quietly rhapsodic quality informs Behroozi's playing on the opening “Imagery,” with hints of his classical side emerging in the lyrical patterns that blossom alongside his partners' accompaniment. Much as it does throughout the recording, conventional metre is suspended for a multi-layered, flowing mass of collective expression. In like manner, the usual approach to soloing that sees each participant taking an orderly turn is here replaced by a harmolodic style where all three constantly solo but do so whilst attending closely to what the others are expressing. The closest Echos comes to a standard piano trio album is with “Royal Star” in the way the melancholy ballad grounds itself in a clearly defined metre and melodic voicings.

Titled after the California town where Behroozi teaches at Gavilan College, “Gilroy” distinguishes itself from the others in using insistent block chords to articulate its supplications. It's also fitting that one track is titled “TDB” considering how pivotal each player is to the outcome. There are moments here where Bill Evans' early trio is evoked by the pianist's textural leanings and the rubato attack of his partners, but Behroozi's group is no clone. That aforementioned emphasis on “sound rather than structure” is the primary reason why Echos sounds like no other piano trio recording. Melodic figures do individuate one piece from another (compare the volcanic turbulence of “Sendoff” to the gentle introspection of “TDB,” for example), but the album registers more as a dynamic cumulative statement than assemblage of separate cuts.

July 2021