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The word jazz embraces music of many different styles and concepts. Pianist Eunhye Jeong’s The Colliding Beings, CHI-DA, explodes familiar forms with freely improvised compositions that marry avant-garde concepts with Korean folk traditions, while Cri$el Gems from bassist Paul Bryan takes an electric, groove-based approach to more familiar forms.

Eunhye Jeong
The Colliding Beings, CHI-DA (Audioguy)
A review
Audacious, disconcerting, and highly musical, The Colliding Beings, CHI-DA, pianist Eunhye Jeong’s most recent recording, was introduced to me via an email from Jeong, who described this live recording as combining free improvisation with elements of pansori, a traditional form of Korean storytelling, which employs music and percussion and of which I was entirely ignorant. An alumna of Berklee College of Music and Banff International Jazz and Creative Music Workshop directed by Vijay Iyer, Jeong presented impressive credentials, and my curiosity moved me to have a listen. The Colliding Beings, CHI-DA is my introduction to a remarkably creative musician with an exceptional, highly percussive pianistic technique who digs fearlessly into emotionally charged subjects. Enlisted for this performance were cellist Ji Park, drummer Soo Jin Suh, and pansori master Il-dong Bae, performers of extraordinary sensitivity to the moment at hand. The album challenges listeners both with its dark palette—the compositions reference such subjects as the Korean diaspora (track 1, “Jeogori”) and the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster (track 4, “The Sacrifice”)—and by the brazen emotionality and power of Bae’s vocalizations. Bae possesses an extraordinary range, from the purest head tones to chest-deep growls and throat-searing screams, and his vocal eruptions can be overwhelming. Once I realized the similarity between Bae and the more-familiar cantaores of flamenco, my ear more readily accommodated his vocals. The specific lyrical material for each track is as follows:
1    “Jinyangjo” and “Love Song” from pansori “Chunhyang-ga”/“Jeogori” from Joseon School in Japan
2    “Hwa-cho-ta-ryeong” from pansori “Simcheong-ga”
3    “Baak-seok-ti” and “Ssuk-dae-meori” from pansori “Chunhyang-ga”
4    “Mama, Sister,” poem by So Wol Kim
5    “Uhwa-doong-doong” from pansori “Simcheong-ga”

Four of the five tracks are freely improvised, while “The Sacrifice” is based on a score from Jeong that requires a high degree of interpretation from each of the musicians (see illustrations below). The level of correspondence—to steal a word from Min Gaph Seo Jeong’s helpful liner notes—among the musicians reaches telepathic levels, especially between Jeong and Park. The musicians blend and collide in breathtaking unity. Some of the more arresting moments include Jeong turning chords inside out on “Jeogori;” the lilt of the vocal against the acute, angular, and percussive piano on “Return to Life;” the mesmeric trio section on “The Hope Landed;” the piano on “The Sacrifice” tolling for the 304 lives lost; and Park’s Jimi Hendrix cello on the uplifting “Curtain Call.” This music is alive and daring, with a coherent, if ever-shifting, three-dimensional architecture, and it will handsomely repay open ears and hearts.

Paul Bryan
Cri$el Gems (ECM)
A review
Paul Bryan, GRAMMY-winning producer of Aimee Mann’s Mental Illness, knows his way around a studio, and he also knows his way around an electric bass. Exhibit A: his new album, Cri$el Gems. The album opens with a tight, dancing bass line on “Phife,” a funky tune that sets the feet to moving. Bryan’s bass forms the spine of every track on this rock-inflected album, and he’s enlisted a sympathetic crew of top-flight Los Angeles musicians, including Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) member Jeff Parker (guitar and coproducer with Bryan), Lee Pardini (electric piano), Matt Mayhall (drums), Jay Bellerose (percussion), and Davey Chegwidden (congas). Parker’s post-rock guitar matches up nicely with Pardini’s piano. Pardini makes good textural use of FX, and on “Phife” and in a number of other places, he functions almost like a second guitar, with single-note runs in conversation with Parker’s spikey guitar. Half the band is drums, percussion, and congas, and Mayhall, Bellerose, and Chegwidden, respectively, keep pushing the music forward. Mayhall provides irresistible propulsion and particularly shines on “Witness Mark,” a composition of Steely Dan coolness. Six of the eight tracks are Bryan compositions, with one from Mayhall and one from Bryan/Mann. Among the highlights are Bryan’s “Pyramid Scheme,” which opens with another memorable bass line, a minatory guitar, and anxious percussion from Bellerose, who makes some inspired choices on this track. The long lines of Mayhall’s bluesy “TV Baby” give the feel of a determined sleepwalker, and the dreamy “It’s So Easy to Die,” the Bryan/Mann tune, builds effectively on a deceptively simple line. The solos from Parker, Pardini, and Bryan offer succinct, well-shaped statements throughout, and the tracks never outlive their welcome. This collection of lively tunes and the electric instrumentation might offer an entree to the world of jazz for rock fans, while the accomplished improvisational talents of these six musicians will satisfy the seasoned jazz fan.

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© 2020 Mel Minter