Reviews

Paulsen’s music, despite its detailed and heady nature, lives and breathes with plenty for the heart as well as the mind. The title track features horns layering long lines over Paulsen and Hochmiller’s doubled counterpoint and Mullen’s delicately interactive response. Despite spare and melody-centric piano and bass solos, Bacas’ lithe soprano raises the temperature on this elegantly restrained piece of chamber jazz.The knotty and complex intro to “Tight Lipped,” with its stops and starts, shifting bar lines and vivid dynamics, expands outward into a hard-swinging solo section for soprano, trumpet and piano. With more colors at Paulsen’s disposal, a clear defining point is how much space there is for interaction, despite his predilection for long-form composition.

Paulsen makes great use of subset possibilities inherent within the ensemble. The balladic “In and Of Itself” begins with soprano sax and Paulsen’s arco meshing seamlessly. As the group gradually enters, the cumulative and revealing effect feels uncannily inevitable. “Triple Pairs” extends the subset concept further, with Paulsen’s robust pizzicato introducing a nearly fourteen-minute 7/4 tune that combines unison horn lines, jagged piano support and Riley’s bottom-heavy bass clarinet. Written sections delineate a free exchange between bass clarinet and sax, and a more brooding duet for piano and flugelhorn, before Paulsen’s second solo leads the sextet to an idiosyncratic conclusion.

“Random Width” may be collective spontaneous composition, but it’s the hardest swinging track on the disc, at least at the start. Bacas’ visceral tenor solo leads into an open-ended flugelhorn/piano/bass/drums quartet before moving into darker territory, with Mullen’s malleted tom-toms and cymbals underscored by Paulsen’s arco. The rest of the group gradually reenter with intertwining lines and harmonies that are all-the-more remarkable for their in-the-moment creation.

Paulsen’s arrangement of “Nefertiti” draws a clear inspirational line between his own cerebralism and that of Shorter’s. Still, like the legendary saxophonist, Paulsen’s intellectual approach is never at the expense of approachability. Swinging fiercely during solos from Meashey, Bacas and Hochmiller, it’s a fitting closer to an album that demonstrates a potent mix of compositional complexity and open-minded expression. Paulsen’s obviously someone to watch, with the evolutionary Change of Scenery creating an even clearer view of this talented bassist/composer’s musical personality.

Paulsen’s background includes a solid grounding in classical music, which comes as no surprise. His arco solo on the extended rubato intro to Hochmiller’s “Motion” might feel more at home in a classical recital. But Paulsen’s improvisational acumen on this initially brooding piece belies a more spontaneous mindset. When the piece transitions into an elastic, yet delicately swinging middle section, where pianist Wells Hanley tills turf blending the economy of Evans with the more outward reaching harmonic ideas of Paul Bley, there’s a palpable emotional shift, before Paulsen brings his bow back and gradually returns the by-now optimistic ambience to its more sombre conclusion.

Paulsen’s own writing ranges from the more abstract and free-style impressionism of the slowly unfolding “Tre Formaggi —where drummer Joe Mullen’s colorations suggest a pulses in a less direct, Motian-like fashion—to the greater insistence of “What If, with its staggered theme, and a schizophrenic title track that shifts from Nordic cool to thematic ellipsis and occasional swing in a very ECM-like way. In fact, a very European aesthetic informs Paulsen’s music, and… with Tri-Cycle, Paulsen proves himself to be every bit as capable as a leader… with Hanley and Mullen, Paulsen reveals a stylistic specificity that’s evolving on the Philly scene which can rival that in any other major center.

“Forza Blu,” a 6/4 blues inspired by Prokofiev (Paulsen is also an accomplished classical musician, and classical influences permeate the album) opens with a repeating theme that’s propelled by the more-than-able rhythm section. Meashey then cuts loose with an expertly crafted solo that’s followed by a slightly more relaxed improvisation from Farr. But it’s Lawton who shines here; after backing the horns, he takes flight in an extended solo of his own that allows him to demonstrate some real pyrotechnics on the keyboard.

The title track is an appropriately elegiac 29-bar waltz composed in memory of a friend of Paulsen’s who has died. Early in the track Paulsen takes his first solo, a restrained but heartfelt passage that evokes the sadness of his loss. Lawton picks up from there and executes a solo that’s technically pristine but also entirely organic in the way it hews to the heart of the melody.

Paulsen’s penchant for a melancholy take on things is also evident in a fascinating rendition of Bill Evans’ “Turn Out the Stars.” Paulsen leads into the piece unaccompanied, with a moody solo that harkens as much to the abstractions of modernist classical composers as to anything jazz has produced…the emphasis is on creating a mood; Mullen keeps the rhythmic pulse to a minimum, and the other players basically maintain a subtle support of Paulsen’s theme. Finally, the mood lightens as the horns (Farr is on soprano sax here) engage in some almost playful call-and-response dialog.

“Endless Mountains” is meant to evoke the Poconos and the music scene there, while “Reddish Blues,” a tribute to bassist Red Mitchell, conjures a New Orleans funeral march. This deceptively simple track begins with a muted Mullens drum solo. Meashey and the rhythm section follow with a somber reading of the dirge-like theme. But once again, Farr’s soprano sax brightens the proceedings with a lilting, lyrical solo that flits and floats over the bottom. Mullens’ restrained, atmospheric use of the cymbals is a real highlight here.

Paulsen’s classical training is evident in his tightly constructed compositions. And the compositions, in turn, are a real showcase for this band’s formidable technical prowess.

On Sam Jones’ “Bittersweet,” the album’s final cut, the band does get to let its hair down. With Paulsen’s bass and Lawton’s left-hand piano work driving the tempo, the soloists have a solid foundation on which to build some inspired, swinging solos. It’s a fitting tribute capped by Paulsen’s liner notes, in which he calls Jones “one of the swingingest bassists in jazz history.