For her first release in a number of years, pianist/composer Eva Novoa continues her mixture of Thelonious Monk fingers with abstract harmonies and ideas with her latest trio consisting of bassist Kamaguch and drummer Gerald Cleaver.
The prevailing concept here is in putting together musical free style paintings, with each song a framed idea for gazing at from either close perspectives or 20 feet back.
Mixing bass and piano strings, Novoa and Kamaguch create dots and dashes along with bodhi tree chimes on the exotic “Gong Steps” while Novoa’s left hand stretches the interdigital muscles to extremes in search of new harmonies and directions on the dark “Circles In Blue”. Novoa slowly ruminates before scrambling apart like mercury on the noir alley of “Sound Escape” while tinkle tinkling with Cleaver on a rumble to scramble “Grafitismo”.
Novoa brings in new ideas as well by adding the Rhodes keyboard to her palate, with “Spheres” hovering a frosty blend a sounds with cymbals and bass before the funk turns to loosely impressionistic. “Rectangology” , on the other hand, brings in tentative drums with Novoa gurgling and sparkling on the keyboard with hints of Bitches Brew and beat poetry. A collection of ideas that coalesce and disperse like balls in a jazzy pachinko machine.