If you are searching for a glimmer of light in this dark and ominous hour, consider this. We are living in a golden age of jazz piano. There are more interesting pianists playing in a wider spectrum of styles at a high level of artistry and technique than at any time in the music’s eleven-decades of existence.
And it gets better. Three such pianists, Orrin Evans, Simona Premazzi and Philip Golub, can be heard in Cleveland over the next eight days. Though they might not have the name recognition of a Herbie Hancock or Jon Batiste, all are singular stylists who encounter the jazz piano tradition in idiosyncratic and brilliantly original ways.
Orrin Evans Trio
Orrin Evans is the senior member and also the most frequent visitor of this week’s Power Three. His last Cleveland appearance came 364 days before this year’s show, two days before his 50th birthday. But in Evans’ case, familiarity should breed curiosity, not contempt, since his approach, while powerfully rooted in the tradition, is resolutely, almost defiantly unpredictable.
The tradition vs. innovation thing has been a dialectic of jazz nearly since the beginning, but few smudge the lines with the daring and grace that are the hallmarks of Evans’ style. He makes unconventional choices sound completely logical and logical choices sound as though they were conceived at the very moment of their sounding.
A Philly guy through-and-through, Evans arrives at the Hingetown club in the company of a pair of Philadelphians. Bassist Matthew Parrish was last at BOP STOP in 2019 with his partner, vocalist Michelle Lordi while Byron Landham is one of Evans’ and most trusted musical partners. He also has one of the great nicknames in jazz: Wookie. No, Landham isn’t seven feet tall and he’s not covered in fur, but he swings harder than Chewbacca ever did.
Both men are stalwarts of Evans’ Imani Records stable, which makes them part of a musical family. Evans takes family very seriously, as seriously as he takes music, but he’s never solemn. Whether leading one of the three trios he’s brought to BOP STOP or as part of The Bad Plus, Orrin Evans is here to lift the spirit.
Orrin Evans Trio Wednesday, March 25, 7 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, tickets $25 available here
Premazzi/Nasser Quartet
Like Orrin Evans, Milan-born Simona Premazzi has a thing for March at the BOP STOP, returning three years after her last visit. Like Orrin Evans, her piano style is recognizably in the jazz tradition, yet the choices she makes at the keyboard are cliché-free and fresh.
Perhaps it is because she is a relative latecomer to the language. “I did all classical studies until when I was 21,” she told me on a video call from her New York apartment. “It’s not that easy as an Italian to be exposed to jazz unless you look for it. So after then, it was like a virus that got into my blood and that’s it. It’s never abandoned me.”
Premazzi returns with largely the same band she brought in 2023, Jay Sawyer on drums and old friend Noah Garabedian in for Martin Nevin on bass. Of saxophonist Nasser, Premazzi said, “Our writing somehow works well together because we are, complementary of each other somehow. We think differently, but our aesthetics match.”
It helps that Premazzi and Nasser can hone their complementarity at New York’s Cellar Dog club, where the quartet has a monthly engagement, a rare luxury for a band these days. “Having something like that where we can get our shape as a band more formed and more solid and understanding each other better and feeling more free to interact with each other has been a great opportunity.”
Premazzi has similarly warm feelings about BOP STOP. “We had a great time. We had been treated wonderfully. The audience was great and they seemed to respond well to our music,” she said. “I have good memories about that. Yeah, I remember it was very cold outside, not in the club.”
You can listen to my conversation with Simona Premazzi here.
Premazzi/Nasser Quartet Friday, March 27, 8 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, tickets $20 available here
Tropos
Here I’m taking a few liberties in order to sustain this week’s theme. Tropos is a collective, and pianist Philip Golub is only one of four astounding instrumentalists who will headline Wednesday’s New Ghosts show.
Still, he among a handful of pianists who are taking the instrument to hitherto uncharted territory. Only time will tell if others will follow, but for now his seamless command of a musical multi-lingualism feels bracing and full of possibilities. Like his Tropos colleagues, Aaron Edgcomb (drums/percussion), Ledah Finck (violin) and Yuma Uesaka (clarinets),
Golub is equally at home in notated and fully improvised music from both the contemporary composition and Black American Music traditions. Listen casually and you can hear his classical training. Listen perhaps a bit harder and his time in the ensemble led by bassist Cecil McBee is apparent. Really big ears will appreciate the profound but uncategorizable influence of Wayne Shorter whose manuscripts Golub is organizing and digitizing.
Shorter and Anthony Braxton—the composer whose works were the subject of Tropos’ debut recording—seem like the most obvious points of reference for the ensemble. Are they jazz, classical or something else altogether? Ultimately, labels matter less than the quality and audacity of the music, and as usual, Matt Laferty’s ears have led him unerringly to both.
P.S. This Pennsylvania native completely endorses Tropos’ titling game.
Tropos Wednesday, March 31, 8 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, tickets $20 available here
For the most complete listing of jazz and jazz-adjacent events., look to Jim Szabo’s essential, weekly Northeast Ohio jazz calendar.
