Now (Lafayette Gilchrist Music

Lafayette Gilchrist

Released October 2, 2020

2020 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll Top 50Best New Album

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lMA-TGAjPaOvq4YpY4mv3-70X6VgbjChA

Spotify:

About:

Drawing on the span of jazz history from stride to free improvisation, along with inspiration from hip-hop, funk, and Washington D.C.’s unique go-go sound, Gilchrist’s music thrives on making surprising connections between styles and influences, boldly veering from pile-driver funk to piquant stride, vigorous swing to hip-hop swagger, contemplative abstraction to deep-bottom grooves. Gilchrist has toured extensively with David Murray, and his compositions have graced the soundtracks of David Simon’s acclaimed series The Wire, The Deuce & Treme.
Lafayette leads the genre-defying ensembles the New Volcanoes and the Sonic Trip Masters All Stars, and long with bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Eric Kennedy, he’s a member of the adventurous collective trio Inside Out. In 2017, Gilchrist was named a Local Legend by Baltimore Magazine, while Baltimore City Paper named Lafayette Gilchrist and the New Volcanoes as “Best Band.” In 2018 he was chosen as a Baker Artist Award winner. Gilchrist has performed with Cassandra Wilson, Macy Gray, Oliver Lake, Andrew Cyrille, Orrin Evans, Paul Dunmall, Hamid Drake, William Parker, and many more. Gilchrist’s most recent album is 2019’s Dark Matter which landed on numerous critics best of 2019 lists. The record, Gilchrist’s second solo recording, muses on the elusive and mysterious matter that ties the universe together. Recorded live at the University of Baltimore’s Wright Theater by acclaimed hip-hop producer Wendel Patrick (also known as classical and jazz pianist Kevin Gift), the set features eleven original tunes that cycle through a wide range of moods and ideas, from deeply personal meditations to socially conscious outcries.

Track Listing:

1. Assume The Position 08:56

2. Bamboozled 06:39

3. Rare Essence 10:27

4. Old Shoes Come To Life 10:00

5. On Your Belly 10:50

6. Say A Prayer For Our Love 07:36

7. Bmore Careful 12:30

8. The Midnight Step Rag 08:38

9. Tomorrow Is Waiting Now 13:33

10. The Wonder Of Being Here 05:58

11. Purple Blues 10:49

12. Newly Arrived 07:14

13. Enough 10:25

14. Get Straight To The Point 08:19

15. Can You Speak My Language 09:24

16. Specials Revealed 07:43

Personnel:

Lafayette Gilchrist: piano

Herman Burney: bass

Eric Kennedy: drums

Mixing and Mastering: Allyn Johnson

Photography: Michael Torres

Layout Design: David Andler  

Review:

For much of the 2010s, Baltimore-based pianist/composer Lafayette Gilchrist has looked to larger ensembles to give voice to his expansive arrangements. In fact, you have to go back to Three (Hyena, 2007) to find his previous trio outing. With Now, Gilchrist embraces a more intimate setting in the company of drummer Eric Kennedy and bassist Herman Burnie. It’s a triumphant, grass-roots return that showcases the dazzling breadth and originality of Gilchrist’s pianism and the enduring appeal of the piano trio format. Weighing in at a whopping two-and-a-half hours, this double-CD offering could easily have stretched to a third platter, and it is testament to Gilchrist’s deep well of creativity that there are absolutely no fillers among the sixteen tracks.
Not for the first time, Gilchrist revisits his veritable theme tune “Assume The Position”—a searing instrumental response to police brutality, that sadly, is as relevant today as ever. Burnie’s ominous bass ostinato, picked up by Gilchrist in the piano’s lower register, sets the tone for a rumbling trio workout of dark hues and dramatic turns, the leader threading a string of funky motifs and rhythmically accented runs in a beguiling weave over Kennedy’s blistering stick work. Similarly inspired, “Bmore Careful” sees Burnie on arco alternate between legato lines and riffing intensity, while Kennedy’s restless rhythms and Gilchrist’s probing runs build inexorably towards a thrilling climax.
The potent brew that is Gilchrist’s idiosyncratic language tips a wink to stride and ragtime, and seemingly draws in equal measure from the quirky bebop of Thelonious Monk and the more outré attack of Cecil Taylor. Yet there is also a lightness of touch and an appreciation for space, evident on the meditative “Bamboozled” and in the easy swing of “Enough Said,” both of which carry echoes of Ahmad Jamal. Whilst these are merely hints of accents, the vernacular central to Gilchrist’s voice resides in the go-go funk of his formative years in Washington D.C., heard to telling effect on the grooving “Rare Essence”—a hypnotic mash-up of catchy hooks, epic melody, and burrowing improvisation.
Whether basking in the feel-good vibes of “Old Shoes Come to Life,” whipping up a brilliant storm on the tumultuous “On Your Belly Like A Snake,” or charting rhapsodic territory on the epic “Waiting Now (Sharon’s Song),” there is an inescapable sincerity in Gilchrist’s delivery—allied to emotional depth—that is both affecting and uplifting. The trio also seduces at a gentler pace on ballads like “The Wonder Of Being Here,” the Duke Ellingtonian “Purple Blues” and the quietly edifying “Can You Speak My Language,” where Burnie’s lyrical currents and Kennedy’s deft percussive touches provide the ribbons and bows to Gilchrist’s mazy hypnotism.
A spectacular feast that keeps on giving, Now is not just one of the best piano trio outings of the year but arguably one of the year’s best jazz albums period. Let’s hope it’s not another thirteen years before Gilchrist takes the dust covers off the trio format he so excels in.

Ian Patterson (All About Jazz)