The long-running Boston trio of Pandelis Karayorgis on piano, Nate McBride on bass and Luther Gray on drums explore the music of Hasaan Ibn Ali through four compositions transcribed by Karayorgis from Hasaan's so-called "lost" Atlantic album Metaphysics, interleaved with six of the band's favorite tracks from Thelonious Monk and three tracks from Monk peer Elmo Hope.
Label: Driff Records Catalog ID: CD2201 Squidco Product Code: 32723
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2022 Country: USA Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Tracks 1-4 and 8-13 recorded at Firehouse 12, studio B, in New Haven, Connecticut, on April 9th, 2022, by Greg DiCrosta.
Tracks 5-7 recorded live at the Lilypad, Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Pandelis Karayorgis.
"Features four compositions from Hasaan Ibn Ali's recently re-discovered 1965 recording Metaphysics (Omnivore, 2021), three classics by Elmo Hope, and six Thelonious Monk favorites.
The two recent Omnivore releases of Hasaan's "lost" recordings were the starting point for this project. Karayorgis and McBride had previously recorded several Hasaan tunes from the Max Roach album recorded in 1964 (The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan) with their trio mi3 with drummer Curt Newton, for Clean Feed and HatArt in 2008 and 2013. Here, with Luther Gray on drums, they take up four "new" Hasaan compositions transcribed by Karayorgis last year and surround them with material by Monk and Hope, who, like Hasaan, stand out for their one-of-a-kind approach to writing and playing the piano. The two elder pianists also had a close musical relationship and personal friendship, while the somewhat younger Hasaan was a great admirer of Hope and saw him as the person from whom he "heard how to learn" according to Alan Sukoening's liner notes from the Max Roach album.
The three Hope tunes presented here come from the 1953-54 recordings for Blue Note. Elmo Hope's writing, while certainly subtler than Monk's, is still striking for its melodic inventiveness and unexpected harmonic twists. Some of his tunes can have very unusual forms and chord progressions that bring to mind his close personal relationship with Monk-these two are known to have exchanged musical ideas. (The A section of "Off Minor" is reportedly "borrowed" from Elmo Hope.)
Finally, six compositions by Monk himself, whose work figures prominently in Karayorgis's earlier discography, round off the program. Karayorgis and McBride have been working on Monk's music since the early 90s.
Karayorgis, McBride and Gray have a long history of playing together in various formations, most recently in Cutout with Jeb Bishop and Jorrit Dijkstra, The Diagonal adding Jeff Parker, the large ensemble Bathysphere, the double trio CliffPools, and numerous other groups."-Driff