John Esposito Quintet: Lyra (Sunjump 0016; USA)

Featuring Greg Glassman on trumpet, Stacy Dillard on tenor & soprano sax, John Esposito on piano & compositions, Ira Coleman on bass and Peter O’Brien on drums.

 

Ever since hearing pianist John Esposito play with drummer/composer Franklin Kiermyer in the early 1990’s, I’ve been a big fan. Since the mid-1980’s Mr. Esposito has been leading bands and composing his own music and eventually starting his own label, Sunjump Music. I had lost contact with Esposito around 2015 and had forgotten about his music and his label and have recently caught up.

 

Sunjump now has nearly 20 releases, many of which are sessions led by Mr. Esposito, guitar great Sangeeta Michael Berardi or a few other Esposito collaborators. Mr.

Esposito’s most recent release as a leader is this, his current (released in 2017) quintet.

 

The other of this quintet are names I barely recognize from previous endeavors: Greg Glassman (with Roswell Rudd), Stacy Dillard (with Ben Tyree & numerous big bands) and Ira Coleman (with Vincent Herring, Tony Williams & Barney Willen).

 

Mr. Esposito explains in the liner notes that the 17 pieces on these two discs were actually written in the 1980’s, when Esposito was working with the legendary saxist Arthur Rhames. Mr. Rhames was a complex musician who was also a triple threat who played guitar & piano as well as sax, all astonishingly well. Mr. Esposito learned quite a bit while playing with Mr. Rhames as far as transposing songs in a large variety of keys, making things difficult for his collaborators. A number of the lessons Esposito learned can be found in these songs, which he finally recorded in 2014, some thirty years later.

 

Disc 1 starts with “Always Present”, the only song played twice on this two disc set. Similar to an earlier session called, ’Tiger Tracks’ (from 1987 with Dave Douglas on board), Mr. Esposito has organized a superb quintet with all strong, inspired

mature-sounding musicians. What makes this disc great is that they have all the ingredients of great jazz, in a classic Blue Note sort of way: they swing hard, the melodies are both effervescent, memorable & even soulful, the arrangements are slyly crafty and all solos are inspired.

 

There is both a sense of fun going on here as well as an uplifting, finger-snapping quality that can make us all feel better to be alive. Considering that both discs here are over 70 minutes each and everything I’ve heard here is equally excellent, there is quite a bit of great music to make this set a winner on many levels. This is modern jazz at its best!

- Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery