A Jazz Debut under Extraordinary Conditions

Michael Echaniz on the cover of his debut album

This coming Friday Ridgeway Records will release a debut jazz album that can be described without exaggeration as a product of extraordinary circumstances. The title of the album is Seven Shades of Violet (Rebiralost); and the artist making his debut is pianist, keyboardist, and composer Michael Echaniz, who is based here in San Francisco. As is frequently the case, Amazon.com has created a Web page for processing pre-orders.

What makes the circumstances extraordinary is that the album was produced by Echaniz on the heels of his successful battle with stage IV lymphoma, the most critical stage of this particular cancer, since it indicates spread beyond the lymphatic system, where it originated. The album amounts to a “program” of eleven tracks, nine of which had both music and lyrics composed by Echaniz. The first of the other two tracks is Wayne Shorter’s “Prince of Darkness” and Sky Ferreira’s “Everything is Embarrassing,” both of which are presented through Echaniz’ own arrangements. The overall program is framed by “Prologue” and “Epilogue” tracks.

There is a generous amount of instrumental diversity across this album. However, the core of the performances is a trio in which Echaniz plays with Jeff Denson (founder of the Ridgeway label) on bass and Dillon Vado on percussion. Denson is also one of three contributing vocalists, the other two being Danielle Wertz and Molly Pease. Other contributing jazz instrumentalists are Dann Zinn (tenor saxophone), Silvestre Martinez (congas and percussion), Lu Salcedo (guitar), Shay Salhov (alto saxophone), Erik Jekabson (trumpet), and John Gove (trombone).

However, the most ambitious track on the album is “Fantasie 73,” which Echaniz performs with the members of the Friction Quartet: violinists Otis Harriel and Kevin Rogers, violist Mitso Floor, and cellist Doug Machiz. This music was inspired by Frédéric Chopin’s Opus posthumous 66 “Fantaisie-Impromptu” in C-sharp minor. This is best known because the left hand plays three notes to the beat against the right hand playing four notes to the beat. Echaniz imaginatively reworked this 4:3 ratio into a 7:3 ratio; and the polyrhythmic interplay between piano and strings is positively bone-chilling, about as distant as one can possibly get from the Chopin source.

Regular readers probably know that I have been following Friction since the quartet formed in 2011. They have long been an adventurous ensemble and had no trouble taking on Echaniz’ composition. The result is a single-movement piano quintet that provided an excellent fit into the prevailing rhetoric of loss and rebirth found in the composer’s reflection on his health issues.