Technically Acceptable is the second Blue Note release for pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson, who continues to display his virtuosity and sly quirkiness in an album that includes pop-oriented jazz, blues, intricate trio interactions, a jazz standard, and the first-ever piano sonata in the Blue Note catalog. This kind of wide-ranging journey is typical for Iverson since he left the arena-filling group that he co-founded, The Bad Plus, in 2017. He continues to balance the well-grounded material with an eye toward tradition with an experimental bent. Twists abound, even in the sonata. The project is as three albums in one. Unlike 2022’s Blue Note debut (covered on these pages) Every Note Is True with elders Jack DeJohnette and Larry Grenadier, Iverson leads two separate trios here of younger musicians, includes a bizarre duet of a standard, and of course renders the sonata solo.
The first seven tracks, all originals, feature bassist Thomas Morgan (Bill Frisell, Jakob Bro) and drummer Kush Abadey (Wallace Roney, Ravi Coltrane). These are a combination of tightly constructed Bad Plus-like compositions, accessible, and conducive to inventive interplay. The sprightly opener “Conundrum” is a theme song for an imaginary game show for which the rules have not yet been determined. “Victory Is Assured (Alla Breve)” nods to Kansas City jump blues with an avant-garde slant while “It’s Fine to Decline” is also angular but slower, syncopated, abstract Monk-like blues. The self-deprecating title track features several rhythmic changes and puts bassist Morgan in the spotlight along with nifty kit work from Abadey who shifts from brushes to sticks. It is as if Iverson is winking at us – “See – we can handle the tricky stuff too.” The emphatic last chord is a killer. The lyrically rich “Who Are You, Really?” builds off a Dexter Gordon quote, held tightly by Morgan’s sturdy walking bass line. The tempo slows for “The Chicago Style,” another touch of avant-garde slightly reminiscent of the late Muhal Richard Abrams and the AACM. The hymn “The Way Things Are” is Iverson’s version of the Serenity Prayer. We started at play and finished in reverent contemplation.
Two of the next three feature trio mates Chilean-born, NYC-based bassist Simon Willson and in-demand drummer Vinnie Sperazza from their collective work with the Mark Morris Dance Group. The first is an interesting reading of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” which evokes both the romanticism of the well-known Roberta Flack version and the jazz of the Hampton Hawes version which was the first one that Iverson heard, interestingly enough. Even here though, you can hear Iverson’s minimalist Bad Plus-like approach. “The Feeling Is Mutual” is an original, melodic, and dreamy song with the same steady clicking beat as in the former, which to these ears becomes just a bit too repetitive, distracting from the lovely melody laid down by the leader. In between Iverson renders one of the most oft-covered jazz standards “’Round Midnight” in duet with multi-instrumentalist Rob Schwimmer on theremin, which is always weird, and not in keeping with this writer’s taste. Yet, kudos to Iverson for the unusual twist.
The Piano Sonata is a through-composed work in three movements extending for fifteen minutes or so. Like so many of today’s contemporary jazz musicians Iverson fuses his jazz vocabulary with twentieth-century classical composers, stretching from Gershwin and Copland to the minimalism that characterizes so much of his work, owing to Philip Glass and Steve Reich primarily in the second movement, “Andante.” Listen closely though and you’ll find the stride piano of James P. Johnson and shades of ragtime in the first movement, “Allegro Moderato.” The final movement “Rondo” is arguably the most intriguing as it merges the Gershwin/Copland strains with a modernist aggressive approach.
When taking the risks that Iverson takes here, every track won’t be a ‘home run” but he certainly renders more than his fair share of winners.