On Marbles, pianist/composer Falkner Evans employs a sextet (occasionally septet) of stellar and well-known New York musicians to produce richly colored harmonies across nine original compositions. On Tides, the Swiss quartet Phraim, fronted by vocalist Nina Reiter, delivers a robust collection of distinctively original compositions that blend elements of rock, jazz, and art song.

Falkner Evans
Marbles (Consolidated Artists Productions)
A review
Pianist/composer Falkner Evans was hearing things. What he was hearing pushed him out of his everyday solo, duo, and trio projects to put together a sextet fronted by three horns, because the harmonies and textures in his head could not be reproduced with fewer. On his latest release, Marbles, the nine original compositions and their orchestration are the star of the show, which is not in any way meant to diminish the performance of the musicians, who are stellar: Ted Nash (tenor sax, clarinet, flute), Michael Blake (soprano and tenor saxes), Ron Horton (trumpet and flugelhorn), Belden Bullock (bass), and Matt Wilson (drums)—and just for fun, Steve Nelson (vibraphone) guesting on a few tracks. Nash and Blake are well matched, their different tenor sounds—Nash so lyrical and mellow, Blake so growlly and angular—giving the composer almost two different instruments even when they are playing the same one. The soulful Horton takes an eminently modern approach, but his roots go deep in the historic loam of the genre, which infuses his work with a delightful tension. Wilson—is there a more melodic drummer?—and Belden have a nice correspondence throughout. Everybody gets an opportunity to stretch their legs a bit, and what nice legs they have. Evans’ delivers comfortably sophisticated compositions and solos, and while harmonies are typically used to color the melodic line, Evans sometimes seems to use the melodic line to color the harmonies in his left hand or in the three horns behind him. There is one cover: a short, lively ensemble workout on Ellington’s “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” which brings the album to a happy close. Sleek and uncluttered, Marbles offers complex music that goes down easy.

Phraim
Tides (QFTF)
A review
On their second album, Tides (available May 29), the collaborative and cohesive Swiss quartet Phraim—Nina Reiter (vocals), Stephan Plecher (piano), Marc Mezgolits (electric bass), and Peter Primus Frosch (drums)—offers 14 original tracks that marry jazz, rock, and art song sensibilities and highlight the band’s chameleonlike ability to match musical responses to compositional demands. Out in front is Reiter, whose warm, clear vocals—often wordless—reveal a dazzling technical mastery, from breath to pitch to articulation. Her precise pitch control shines right on the opening lines of the first track, “And Still I Rise.” I was sure she was a touch flat on a particular note the first time she hit it, then somewhat astonished when she was flat again the second time, and then, when she squarely hit the note yet again on the third go-round, I realized, to my embarrassment, that she had been nailing exactly the pitch she was after: she wanted that harmonic tension and rightly so. The melodic lines in Plecher’s “Minuit” and Mezgolits’ “First You Come for Me, Then You Run from It” sound improvised but are composed and extremely demanding in tempo and range, but Reiter moves through them smoothly in unison with the piano, clearly articulating the lyrics. The bass and drums bring a rock muscularity to the proceedings and push the music irresistibly forward, though they are distractingly forward in the mix at times, as on “Minuit.” Mezgolits, who has five composing credits on the album, can produce a lovely, lyrical tone and line on his bass, as on “Twist Me a Crown of Windflowers,” Reiter’s composition on Christina Georgina Rosetti’s poem. (Five additional tracks have lyrics, in English, which Reiter wrote after the music was composed.) Ranging from the delicately lyrical to the aggressively abstract, Plecher brings an impressive range of touch and energizing invention to the album, recorded live in the studio in front of an invited audience of 26 listeners. He also offers a valuable rhythmic counter to Mezgolits and Frosch, producing an intriguing multirhythmic tension. Four of the last nine tracks, titled “I,” “II,” “III,” and “IV,” offer short, engaging solo compositions by each member of the quartet. Together, the four musicians work as a cohesive unit, with an ebb and flow to their interactions that develop the distinctive compositions organically and hold the listener’s attention.

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© 2020 Mel Minter