Prawntail trio members Evan Main, Walter Stinson, and Steven Crammer (photograph by Lindsey Crammer, courtesy of Endectomorph Music)
This coming Friday, Endectomorph Music will release the album Prawntail. As tends to be the usual case, Bandcamp has already created a Web page for this album, which is currently processing pre-orders. The title of the album is the name of a Brooklyn-based piano trio, whose members are pianist Evan Main, bassist Walter Stinson, and drummer Steven Crammer.
Each of these musicians has an impressive background of major jazz artists with whom he has previously played. It would probably be fair to say that the tracks on the new Prawntail trio album amount to a synthesis of the experiences acquired by each of the players. While individual improvisation can often be imaginatively inventive, the collective invention of an ensemble, such as a trio, runs a greater risk of being dicey. More specifically, no matter how acute each performer is in listening to the others, he must always be on guard against what my first composition teacher liked to call “noodling.” In other words, where imaginative invention is concerned, one must always guard against the risk of a bland serving of boiled prawns in broth (with or without noodles)!
Mind you, each of the three players has his own capacities for invention. The important question is whether or not the whole is more than the sum of its parts. While there are definitely engaging episodes on Prawntail, I am not sure they are sufficient to lead an attentive listener across all eight tracks on the album.
No comments:
Post a Comment