Marta Sanchez Trio: Perpetual Void
Intakt Records

Years ago Bill Evans expressed his desire to replace the standard piano trio model, whereby the bassist and drummer act as support to the pianist leader, with a more balanced one that would see each participant fully engaged as a conversational partner. While stylistically Marta Sanchez's trio might be light years removed from any of those Evans led, in that particular respect her unit with bassist Christopher Tordini and drummer Savannah Harris represents the fullest realization of her precursor's ideal. Yes, Sanchez, like Evans, remains the primary carrier of melody and the group leader, yet every moment of her trio's performances shows the music being constantly reshaped by the three. Such an approach translates into trio playing that's unpredictable, engrossing, and exciting.

A fascinating other dimension of Perpetual Void, the pianist's fifth album as a bandleader and her first fronting a trio, has to do with track titles that allude to existential and personal crises. Notes with the release clarify that the project developed during a period when Sanchez's mother died and when the pianist endured a prolonged bout of insomnia. Titles such as “3:30 AM” and “Perpetual Void” call to mind harrowing states induced by sleeplessness, while “The Absence of the People You Long For” could refer to her mother's passing. If “Prelude to a Heartbreak” and “This is the Last One About You” seem to allude to the collapse of a romantic relationship, “I Don't Wanna Live the Wrong Life and Then Die” and “Black Cyclone” refer to more general conditions of desperation and despair.

The primary argument in support of Perpetual Void has to do with the performance approach adopted by the three. The compositions, Sanchez originals all, are a varied and intricate bunch, with some urgent and bursting with energy and others thoughtful reflections delivered at a slower pace. Regardless of the differences in style, the eleven tracks are unified by an approach that finds the music in a state of constant transformation. Just as a torrential flow of ideas pours incessantly from Sanchez's fingers, the same applies to partners who are ever responsive to the material collectively emerging through their interplay. Her partners both help ground the playing and untether it through their receptivity to the music's directional flow. Were one to choose a metaphor for the trio's delivery, it would be something ever-unstable like water than something solid like concrete.

Certainly the trio format grants Sanchez a greater outlet than the quintets she's featured on earlier recordings, 2022's well-received SAAM (Spanish American Art Museum) a case in point. With more space to maneuver within, her gifts as an improviser are allowed to fully blossom and her ideas given ample opportunity to develop. The trio set-up also allows for her playing to be heard with enhanced clarity, and consequently her way of generating cross-currents and contrapuntal patterns in her right and left hands becomes fascinating to monitor. To that end, the restless intertwining of angular patterns in the knotty title track might be the prime illustration of Sanchez's pianistic attack (the performance also calls to mind the kinds of interactions Geri Allen got up to with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian in their trio albums). The inclusion of two solo piano explorations, the poetic “Prelude to Grief” and sparkling “Prelude to a Heartbreak,” allows for an even closer examination.

“I Don't Wanna Live the Wrong Life and Then Die” initiates the album with urgency and the first demonstration of the trio's fluidity. As Sanchez obsessively attacks the thematic elements, she's bolstered by the controlled fury of the others. The three plunge into tumult midway through before pulling back to exit the scene-setter with a furious trio expression. In the insomnia-driven “3:30 AM,” Sanchez couples hammering patterns in the low register with dancing fragments higher up as Tordini undergirds her nimble flight of fancy with pulsating lines and Harris generates a complementary firestorm. Countering such ferocity is “The Absence of the People You Long For,” a ballad that captures the trio's deft ability to play in a way that feels suspended and free but not groundless. While Sanchez's trio generally eschews conventional swing, “The Love Unable to Give” comes close to it in the rhythmic momentum generated by its insistent thrust. Skewed traces of funk and blues, on the other hand, surface during the freewheeling moves of “Black Cyclone.”

July 2024