Catchy, Spare, Purposefully Playful New Jazz From Ember and Special Guest Orrin Evans

Ember play a very individualistic, catchy style of original jazz. It’s riff-driven, but it’s not toe-tapping oldtimey swing. Chordless jazz trios tend to busy up the rhythm section – which isn’t such a bad thing if they’re committed to saying something beyond self-indulgence – but saxophonist Caleb Curtis, bassist Noah Garabedian and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza are purposeful to the point of being minimalist. If you’re looking for jazz you can hum along to at a comfortable midtempo pace, this is your jam. Their debut album No One Is Any One is streaming at Sunnyside Records.

A slinky, funky, loopy bassline anchors a sparse, airily cheery melody in the opening track, Reanimation (Zombie Tune). Sperrazza opens that one with a simple beat that’s practically trip-hop. Garabedian is the one to introduce the second tune, Josephine and Daphne, with his steady, pulsing, syncopated chords before Curtis enters, cautiously building s allusively chromatic tune like a low-key JD Allen as Sperrazza colors the sound with his rimshots and frosty cymbals.

The trio step lightly through a stark minor-key oldtime gospel riff and variations in the title cut, Curtis again echoing Allen’s most successful, incisive adventures in the blues. Moody sax drifts over minimal bass and drum accents as the group make their way into the wryly and aptly titled Pilot Light, then Sperrazza signals that the kettle is on the boil and in a second the band bubble and the steam starts to rise.

Likewise, the drummer stirs up a slightly restrained, spiraling rumble in Glass House: Curtis’ irrepressible sense of humor is priceless here. Peace of Deoxygenated Sleep is not a sinister Covid hospital protocol metaphor but an unselfconsciously gorgeous undersea nocturne, Curtis echoing guest pianist Orrin Evans’ spacious, lingering. distantly Indian-tinged lines

Evans takes his time before he gets his sprightly clusters underway in Thomas, a Thomas Chapin homage, Curtis and Sperrazza driving the uneasy modalities as a polyrhythmic intensity simmers and then boils over. A Sperrazza composition, Graceful Without Grace reflects a Christian spiritual concept that serendipity is ours for the taking, a prescient observation in these apocalyptic times. It turns out to be a cheerfully swinging, playful number with stairstepping riffs and a droll game of hide-and-seek.

The next-to-last track, Chia-Sized Standing Desk is actually the furthest thing from cartoonish: this moody rainy-day improvisation is the album’s darkest interlude. They bring the album full circle with a cheerfully strutting shout-out to American Splendor legend Harvey Pekar.

Fun fact: the trio worked up much of the material on this record in Prospect Park. This no doubt would have been more fun if the decision to work alfresco had not been forced on them by the shuttering of indoor rehearsal spaces in the mass psychosis following the March 2020 global coup attempt. Desperate times, etc.

Ember’s next free-world gig is May 13 at 7:30 PM at the Other Side Gallery, 2011 Genesee St in Utica, New York; cover is $20/$10 stud. And Evans is playing a rare trio gig with Matthew Parrish on bass and Vince Ector on drums tonight, April 28 at Mezzrow, with sets at 10:30 and midnight. Cover is $25 at the door. It’s an intimate space: if you’re in the neighborhood, you might want to peek in and see if there’s room (the club doesn’t have a phone).

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