John Escreet: Seismic Shift
Whirlwind Recordings

On Seismic Shift, pianist John Escreet plays with a volcanic intensity that has more in common with Cecil Taylor than Bill Evans, and his trio partners Eric Revis (double bass) and Damion Reid (drums) match the leader for fire and invention. Anyone in the mood for polite, salon-styled performances should probably look elsewhere. With Escreet having decamped from Brooklyn for the West Coast in early 2020, all three musicians now call Los Angeles home. One hears, however, in the trio's playing the kind of fury one associates with the music emanating out of NYC on any given night. Were one to harness the energy unleashed by the three, it'd be enough to power a small city through a weekend-long blackout.

Armed with advanced technical ability, imagination, and years of experience playing in multiple contexts, Escreet's no new kid on the block and as such draws on that extensive background whenever he touches the keyboard. Among those with whom he's played are Antonio Sanchez, Tyshawn Sorey, Greg Osby, and Evan Parker, each one a forward-thinker and kindred spirit. Seismic Shift is Escreet's ninth album as a leader but his first fronting a trio, a format that the evidence at hand argues is especially conducive to his talents. The presence of two partners demarcates a stabilizing zone for their furious interactions to arise within; at the same time, the absence of a competing lead voice gives the pianist total freedom to express himself. As strongly as Revis and Reid impose themselves on the performances, laid down at Big City Recording Studios over two days in January 2022, it's undeniably Escreet whose presence towers most.

When he released his 2008 debut album Consequences and Don't Fight the Inevitable two years later, he seemed to have arrived fully formed as a pianist, something the experiences that followed appeared to confirm. Yet he himself acknowledges that when pandemic-imposed isolation brought with it periods of intensive piano practice, he actually became a better player, something that also naturally happened after spending hours playing on a grand piano he'd come into possession of. That bolstering in confidence also in turn influenced his decision to record a trio set when he felt strong enough to lead Revis and Reid.

Introducing the album, “Study No. 1” refracts bop through a modern lens, the three tackling the tune from multiple angles and the leader somersaulting across the roiling base. Oceanic clusters alternate with roller-coaster runs and chordal interjections as Escreet examines the material with a diamond-cutter's eye. Like the engaged collaborators they are, Revis and Reid respond to the pianist's every move with unrelenting animation. Escreet had a hand in writing eight of the nine pieces, the ninth a sterling cover of Stanley Cowell's “Equipoise.” Escreet honours the late pianist with a grooving treatment that captures the melodic essence of the piece yet nevertheless is energized by the trio's vitality and stamped with its free-wheeling personality. Alluding to Revis and Damion, “RD” opens with a walking pulse that gradually detours into a chords-driven episode whose gale-force winds sweep all three along. Credited to all of the trio members are “Quick Reset” and “Outward and Upward,” adventurous and unpredictable improvisations that reflect the telepathic level they're operating at.

“Perpetual Love” is initially calm, but its activity gradually builds to the same frenetic level as the others. The impression is thus formed of a unit whose collective energy can't be contained, even when an attempt is made to insert a temperate moment into the proceedings. As a title, Seismic Shift is apt in alluding to performances that feel like the ground's constantly shifting under one's feet. Occasional moments of calm do emerge, but more often the playing's marked by Dionysian wildness, turbulence, and eruption—no one'll be daydreaming when the album's on. How fitting that Seismic Shift appears on, of all things, Whirlwind Recordings.

December 2022