Andy McWain Quartet

Can an avant jazz album be both challenging and memorably tuneful? Starfish suggests that it can. Joined by tenor saxophonist Assif Tsahar, acoustic bassist Noah Jarrett and drummer Chris Poudrier, jazz pianist Andy McWain presents ten originals that will remain firmly entrenched in your mind long after the disc leaves your changer. Alternately, you may want to keep it cued up for weeks at a time.

On tunes such as "Periodic Stasis Amid Torrent", the quartet divides the musical dialogue in a very even fashion. Tsahar and McWain each take solos of a questing and probing nature, but Jarrett’s bass lines prove to be an equal part of the rhetoric. He subtly spins a contrapuntal web in the background, referencing both sax and piano lines, simultaneously supportive and inquisitive.

Tsahar and McWain receive co-composer credit for "Duo Interlude", one of the album's finest pieces. Tsahar’s keening melodies might at first seem at odds with the basso passages and textural harmonies that McWain plays at the opening, but each of their lines begins to take on the characteristics of the other —- McWain adds angular melodies and punctilious jabs while Tsahar offsets his upper register hijinks with low, resonant tones.

A composer of concert music as well as jazz, McWain brings his broad palette of musical experiences to bear here. Some of the extended compositions resemble the character of suites. "Toxins (Parts I-III)", a 12-and-a-half minute tone poem, is presented as such. Other tunes, like "Thorn Tea Jar" and "Pure Iris Chord", are presented here in two manifestations, but the related pieces are interspersed with other tracks, not delivered one after the other.

"Wind Can May", on the other hand, is bumptious fun; McWain uses Eastern-influenced scales while Poudrier and Tsahar supply a loping groove. Closer "Another Dynamic Starfish Precursor" opens with a long pizzicato bass introduction from Jarrett; his glides are keenly imitated by Tsahar and McWain. Poudrier starts into a steady rhythm on several occasions, but each time the gesture is aborted, denied by the continued angular repartee of the other three members. An alternation of sepulchral low notes and squeaks emanates from the tenor sax, while the piano traverses some of the disc's most complicated harmonic terrain.

Although this is ostensibly the pianist’s show, McWain does not grandstand, seeming to prefer the role of collaborator. What Andy McWain avoids in flash he more than makes up for with poignantly incisive solos and overwhelming harmonic variety when comping. Starfish is well worth seeking out, and the McWain Quartet is a group to keep an ear out for.
-- Christian Carey - Christian Carey