Renowned jazz pianist and composer Ethan Iverson has had a string of best-selling jazz albums for Blue Note, ECM, and Sunnyside.
In 2020, artists everywhere hunkered down to do pandemic projects. Over dinner that summer, impresario Piers Playfair and Iverson did a deal: in exchange for subsidizing six months studio rent, Iverson agreed to write six “classical” sonatas incorporating jazz and popular idioms and rhythms, with Playfair choosing the instrumentation. Iverson relished the opportunity to create on deadline, and the work went quickly and smoothly.
Piers and Ethan both dove into their deep virtual Rolodexes, consulted colleagues, and eventually enlisted six leading soloists committed to new music performance from around the world – violinist Miranda Cuckson, trumpeter Tim Leopold, trombonist Mike Lormand, clarinetist Carol McGonnell, marimbist Makoto Nakura, and saxophonist Taimur Sullivan.
During the summer of 2023, Miranda introduced Ethan to Urlicht AudioVisual’s owner Gene Gaudette after a recital in Brooklyn. Ethan was a fan of the iconoclastic indie label, and that meeting led to a plan to record the sonatas. Over two days in December, Gene produced the recordings with audiophile engineer Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio.
Playfair is delighted with the results. “It’s cool that out of a COVID dinner we were able to put a project together that so encapsulates one of our joint core beliefs, that divisions that split music, such as jazz, classical, blues etc, into neat little boxes are really just names that people put on them and shouldn’t define the artists.” It was Playfair’s direct suggestion that the cycle needed the bookends Fanfare and Recessional with all members in consort.
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