Economy marks the work of pianist Nick Sanders, whose new trio release, Playtime 2050, announces an original and accomplished young artist. On The Garden of Earthly Delights, André Carvalho takes Hieronymus Bosch’s iconic painting as the inspiration for an extended suite that creates a soundscape as rich, varied, and surprising as the painting’s landscape.

Nick Sanders
Playtime 2050 (Sunnyside Communications)
A review
Pianist Nick Sanders shares a number of characteristics with Thelonious Monk: economy, love of melody, a respect for traditional forms, rhythmic eccentricity, a deep sense of humor, and a compositional voice all his own. On Playtime 2050, produced by Sanders, the pianist and his trio—with Henry Fraser (bass) and Connor Baker (drums)—offer a varied and impressive program of originals. The New Orleans Center for Creative Arts graduate started out as a classical pianist but switched tracks at the urging of Danilo Pérez and Michael Pellera, going on to get a masters degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Pérez, Jason Moran, John McNeil, Ran Blake, Cecil McBee, and his mentor Fred Hersch, who produced his first two albums. Apparently, Sanders wasted no time in his studies, and he wastes not a single note on Playtime 2050. He can say more in a spare 3-minute track than many musicians can communicate with a 10-minute note blizzard. He turns musical phrases this way and that, as if they were three-dimensional puzzles, finding different angles into their mystery and shaking them gently until he has extracted every particle of meaning. With its unconventional melodies and unpredictable improvisations, Playtime 2050 offers highlights aplenty. Determinedly unstraightforward, “Manic Maniac” puts you on a roller coaster blindfolded, and it’s followed by the title track, whose lighthearted, sunny swing is the perfect foil to the previous track’s intensity. “Prepared for Blues,” with just a pair of notes dressed with finishing nails, offers a deep blues rumination with a dreamy conclusion. The classically inflected, through-composed ballad “Still Considering” is counterbalanced by “The Number 3,” with intense, skittering interplay among the trio. On “Hungry Ghost,” the trio makes the floor undulate, building a queasy dread. The outward-looking and percussive “Prepared for the Accident,” a fully improvised track with a prepared piano, presents an approach that is diagonally opposite the title track. The album ends on the diaphanous, hymnlike “#2 Longfellow Park,” the address of an old church near Boston. As original and unconventional as Sanders’ music is, its internal logic makes it feel almost familiar. Listeners may be surprised by the music’s unpredictable turns, but they always seem to lead to a satisfyingly inevitable destination. (Cover painting by Santa Fe artist Leah Saulnier.)

André Carvalho
The Garden of Earthly Delights (Outside In Music)
A review
The namesake of Hieronymus Bosch’s iconic painting, this 11-part suite from Portuguese bassist and composer André Carvalho offers a soundscape as imaginative as the phantasmagoric landscape that inspired it, with the same sweep and attention to detail. A cinematic exploration of Bosch’s strange and wonderful masterpiece, the suite captivates in large part through Carvalho’s lush orchestration, which draws on 14 instruments commanded by six accomplished musicians: Oskar Stenmark (trumpet, flugelhorn), Eitan Gofman (tenor sax, flute, bass clarinet), Jeremy Powell (soprano sax, tenor sax, flute), André Matos (guitar), Carvalho (bass, wrinkled paper), and Rodrigo Recabarren (drums, percussion, bombo legüero). Carvalho crafts a wide array of expressive textures with this collection, making especially effective use of Matos’ electric guitar and effects. Beginning with “Prelude,” which drops the listener into an otherworldly space, the suite moves through diverse territories that draw on jazz, fado, and modern art music, with improvisational and composed sections. The hard bop “The Fools of Venus,” with its memorable trumpet solo, contrasts sharply with the following track, “The Fountain,” which evokes a vast and spacey universe as it moves through folkish and contemporary episodes. “Of Mermaids and Mermen,” funky and playful, finds space and time eminently pliable. The cavernous and weighty “The Thinker in the Tavern” leverages electronic effects in an avant-garde side trip. Compositionally, each piece flows organically from episode to episode, and the composer leaves plenty of room for the musicians to expand on his ideas. On The Garden of Earthly Delights, Fulbright grantee Carvalho seamlessly merges his influences to paint a singular and stimulating response to the worlds of Hieronymus Bosch.

© 2019 Mel Minter