A longtime member of saxophonist
Roscoe Mitchell
's ensembles, drummer
Tani Tabbal
is a boundary-pushing musician whose sound draws from forward-thinking artists like
Ornette Coleman
,
Thelonious Monk
, and
Sun Ra
. All three of those performers come to mind when listening to
Tabbal
's sixth solo album, 2020's
Now Then
. In fact,
played with
's
Arkestra
early in his career, and he brings that group's maverick, interstellar energy to his work with his trio with alto saxophonist
Adam Siegel
and bassist
Michael Bisio
.
Siegel
, the youngest of the three, is a kinetic player with a wiry, probing sound informed by the aforementioned
Coleman
, as well as nods to
Lennie Tristano
. He's joined by
Bisio
, a Seattle stalwart with deep roots in the avant-garde scene having played with luminaries like
Matthew Shipp
Whit Dickey
Joe McPhee
. Together,
and his bandmates bring all of their like-minded experience to bear on music that threads the needle between compositional chamber jazz and free group improvisation. Cuts like the opening "Arrested Confusion" and the title track are particularly
-esque, with
's driving percussion and
's measured bass riff pushing
towards ever-edgier harmonies. Similarly, on "Sun History Ra Mystery," the trio draw upon
's time as a member of
Ra
, as
sprinkles layers of extraterrestrial tonal mist over
and
's slowly churning rhythmic moonscape. Other tracks have titles that wryly describe the sounds at play, as on the onomatopoeia of "Scrunch," in which the trio sound like they are being extruded through a small tube. Equally evocative is "Just Woke Up," in which
's stuttering, bleary-eyed phrasing evokes the feeling of being slowly awakened by the sound of a bird. We also get the animated,
Carl Stalling
-esque "Inky Bud," and the languid harmonic shadows of the ballad "r. henri." With
and his trio play with the intensity and radical creativity of a much larger ensemble. ~ Matt Collar