The humble pianist and composer Dan Karlsberg leads a slightly unconventional quintet spanning at least three generations on his sixth album, Holding the Wheel of Life. We use the descriptor ‘humble’ as Karlsberg presents his music more democratically than most, composing for his ensemble, and eschewing the limelight with relatively few piano solos. His name is even barely visible on the album cover to emphasize that point. The unconventional nature of the quintet is the frontline that pairs the tenor saxophone, not with a trumpet, but a trombone. The 44-year-old Karlsberg, also an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music is flanked by veterans – bassist and producer Jim Anderson (Art Blakey, Hank Crawford, Benny Golson) and Cincinnati jazz legend, trombonist Marc Fields (Ray Charles), as well as University of Cincinnati PhD student, tenor saxophonist Josh Kline and former high school piano student of Karlsberg, drummer Charlie Schefft.
Five of these compositions are Karlsberg originals along with three highly inventive adaptations of covers. Never having recorded with this configuration, this is a new foray for the leader. The frontline creates rather unusual but rich low register harmonics, Karlsberg isn’t shy about incorporating classical motifs into his compositions, and the Cincinnati legacy of the players makes the overall sound somehow less urban in timbre, rather inexplicably different than what we hear emanating from NYC. That said, the opener “Disciples Blues” is as conventional as can be, a swinger, written by The Modern Jazz Disciples, a Cincinnati-based unit that was popular during the ‘50s and ‘60s. Anderson’s sturdy walking bassline anchors the tune written by that band’s saxophonist Curtis Peagler. As such, Kline solos liberally and fervently in this conventional head-solo-solo-head piece. Yet, the experience and bluesy style of Fields upstages him a bit as each member gets his say.
Karlsberg first reveals his classical influence of “Ictus No.1” where he duets with Anderson’s bowed bass on the intro, establishing a low register theme that the front liners then twist, embellish, and weave around to the slow, ballad-like tempo where Karlsberg establishes a waltzing motif in his solo, ceding to Anderson’s lyrical pizzicato run, reverting to arco as the front liners deliver the ominous theme in unison. “Elaine,” dedicated to one of his most influential piano teachers, Elaine Leung-Wolf, to whom the album is dedicated, is an angular, edgier tune where Kline delivers an especially inspired solo while Karlsberg is also out on the edge a bit, evoking Andrew Hill in his solo. “We’re All Just One” is an uplifting tune featuring liquid clusters from Kline and a lyrical solo from Fields akin to that from a vocalist. Karlsberg runs up and down the piano in a bop-like solo as the bass-drum tandem lock-in. “Cheer Up Charlie” is an adaptation of the song from Anthony Newley and Leslie Briscusse” (the same two who wrote “Feeling Good’) for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The unison melody from the tenor and trombone displays some of the richest harmonics in the set.
“Fall Suite Movement 4” is extracted from a yet unfinished album inspired by the four seasons. The animated, somewhat jagged, and angular piece features solos from Kline, a sprightly turn from Karlsberg, and Schefft’s vigorous kit work. “Lili’s Blues” is inspired by a composition from early 20th-century French composer Lili Boulanger, the first female winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome, who died far too soon.
In another adaptation, “Mephistopheles” derived from 19th-century Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, to which Karlsberg added his own spin as if a co-writer. This piece presents the leader’s most extensive piano soloing with the mid-section highlighting the terrific interplay of the rhythm section before the frontliners enter shortly after the three-minute mark, bringing it home in their respectively incandescent and rapturous individual statements before the full quintet descends into an abrupt close.
Highly accessible, evocative, and varied, Karlsberg and his quintet delivers a keeper.
