After being awarded a 2024 Pulitzer Prize for his composition "Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith)," the
Tyshawn Sorey Trio
issues
Susceptible Now
. Following directly from 2023's
Continuing
, this four-track set is composed of four covers played in an unbroken sequence over 80 minutes. The recording puts
Sorey
's collaborations with pianist
Aaron Diehl
at four albums, while the seemingly ubiquitous
Harish Raghavan
appears on double bass. These are exceptionally creative readings of jazz tunes and a radical reinterpretation of a charting R&B single by vocal group
Vividry
.
employs his signature deconstruction method, extracting, re-ordering, and recontextualizing various sections in the originals, while simultaneously rearranging them into elaborate, constantly mutating forms.
The opener is
McCoy Tyner
's "Peresina" (from
Expansions
).
Tyner
recorded it with a star-studded septet that included
Wayne Shorter
,
Gary Bartz
, and
Woody Shaw
. The original begins with a modal Afro-Latin melody that skitters in tempo before the horns enter.
's piano moves from balladry to hard bop to modalism in its various sections. In the 15-plus-minute
TST
reading,
Diehl
offers the intro changes in lush, elegant, balladic form before
Raghavan
, playing a nearly lyric bass pattern, enters with
's brushes and mallets moving the changes without being intrusive. As it evolves, the dynamic shifts.
and
become more forceful and
's chord voicings spur a more intense trio conversation amid more strident interplay and rhythmic intensity. It's followed immediately by a 22-minute version of
Joni Mitchell
's and
Charles Mingus
' "Chair in the Sky." The original opens with a spectral electric piano adorned with fretless bass. Here,
separates the individual notes to form new chords from the instrument's lower and middle registers. The space for
Mitchell
's lyrics is claimed by a gorgeous double bass solo. When
enters, the engagement becomes a flowing narrative. Lightness and elegance become their own forms of luxuriant intensity over a labyrinthine 22 minutes populated with shifting dynamics, tones, and motifs via a three-chord vamp. It all segues into "Your Good Lies" by
. The original is a sophisticated contemporary soul number with gorgeous vocals. The single shimmies up to jazz without crossing over. The trio introduces the melodic framework, but move off almost immediately, exploring the tune's harmonic roots across tempo, key changes, and structural cadences in an organic process. They move effortlessly into epic post-bop exploration for over 26 minutes. "Bealtine," by
Brad Mehldau
, closes the set. Where the original is breezy, kinetic, lyrically engaged post-bop,
intros with elegiac, nearly processional chords.
's inventive tom-tom work introduces
as the trio come together, upping tempo, dynamic, and drama in
's wonderfully complex solo wherein melody, while never absent, is extrapolated as harmonic invention and exchange with the bassist and the drummer cutting through post-bop, Latin jazz, bluesy modalism, and even funky hard bop. The musical language
further developed and articulated on
is sophisticated, surprisingly accessible, and perhaps even timeless. ~ Thom Jurek