By Lee Rice Epstein

Recently, David Adler took to JazzTimes to exclaim about the large amount of excellent guitar music composed by John Zorn from 2017–2024, performed beautifully on a series of duo and trio albums by Julian Lage, Gyan Riley, and Bill Frisell. At that time, I was already anticipating the October release of Nocturnes, with a plan to write about his current leading piano trio with much the same perspective: Can you believe some of the best piano trio music is going, more or less, unrecognized by the quote-unquote jazz world? I sure can.

Yadda yadda yadda, Zorn releases a lot of music, insert argument about onus on critics to keep up, and so on, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad absurdum, ad astra. This feels like a required insert for any and all reviews of Zorn’s music for the past 20 or so years, as if we can’t just accept that he’s working on his own timeline, with a dozen different groups, interwoven concepts, and new books of music every couple of years. If you’re not paying attention, that’s on you, in other words; you’re imposing a set of ground rules he didn’t agree to: record one album, make the press circuit, tour the festivals, record a follow up two years later, rinse and repeat, it could be a brilliant career. Or, make the music you want, when, how, and why you want, with whom you want, call it independent music, a lone bastion in whatever passes for the wilderness today.

And to get here, beginning sometime around 2021, Zorn and pianist Brian Marsella made a slight pivot with the go-to piano trio for recording these works. Up until then, Marsella’s trio with bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Kenny Wollesen had been the prime unit. They recorded a two-part set of music, 2019’s The Hierophant and 2021’s * Meditations On the Tarot * , the took as its prime material the cards of the Tarot deck, and a rapid-fire firecracker of an album, Calculus, which was released in 2020. This somewhat mini-expedition across parallel paths seems to have set the table for what came next. The first move was to form a second piano trio, with Marsella, bassist Jorge Roeder, and drummer Ches Smith, that would record one book of music drawing inspiration from Baroque and Romantic forms alongside a series of albums exploring jazz piano through a variety of lenses. While the second set has so far produced only two albums— * The Fourth Way, * which is influenced by Georges Gurdjieff’s writings, and * Ou Phrontis, * which takes its name from a Greek phrase, meaning something like “who cares,” that was written above the door of T.E. Lawrence’s cottage home at Clouds Hill, a place of respite where he felt no pressure, no bounds or bonds placed upon him—the albums derived from classical forms are already at number four.

Brief sidebar: in 2022, this piano trio also became the basis for another new group, know as Incerto, named for its eponymous debut album. That group adds Julian Lage on guitar and moves through genres and references at a speed closest to the earliest Naked City albums. The guitar, piano, bass, and drums lineup reflects some of the mid-1950s Blue Note and West Coast ensembles, and Incerto expertly revels in that era’s freewheeling excitement for new sounds. Additionally, Roeder, and Smith backed Petra Haden for Love Songs Live, which saw Jesse Harris penning lyrics to to accompany some of Zorn’s impeccable melodies, a case where even Zorn’s multitudes contain multitudes. If you ever want to convince the most skeptical person you know to listen to John Zorn, try one of the sets of music created with Harris.

With all these ideas in motion, after decades of myriad orchestral and chamber compositions and settings, Zorn seems to have found fresh inspiration in the piano trio as a classic jazz ensemble that can take on classical forms from 1600–1950, give or take a few decades. Where the suite goes back in some ways to the 15th and 16th centuries, its structure seems to have been formalized in the Baroque period, where movements like those appearing in Suite for Piano, emerge: “Allemande,” “Sarabande,” “Scherzo,” “Passacaglia,” and “Gigue.” Traditionally, each of these uses different meters and tempi to reflect what are basically dance forms from Germany, France, England, and Spain. Here, they are infused with voicing and phrasing that summons players like Hasaan Ibn Ali, Sonny Clark, Kenny Drew, Freddie Redd, and Elmo Hope. Following Suite for Piano, in rapid succession the group has released Ballades, Impromptus, and * Nocturnes * , which showcase specific song styles, as opposed to an overarching compositional structure.

Ballades is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful collections of songs I’ve heard in the past five years. Roeder’s bass recalls legends like Sam Jones, Paul Chambers, and Cecil McBee, with his deep tones and often surprising phrases. Call Smith the Billy Higgins or Tootie Heath of the band to round out the midcentury touch points, with the melodic sensibility of Tony Williams and Pete “La Roca” Sims, represented by that paradoxical balance of gentle surging Smith brings to the album). Within the ballad form, Zorn crafts 11 songs that use variable tempi, shifting meters, and some of his most compelling harmonies to great effect.

On Impromptus, the trio approaches a form typically reserved for solo performance. As a tight, working unit, Marsella, Roeder, and Smith excel at moving with uniform purpose. Throughout the set, references to previous Zorn works ebb and flow, with melodic quotes stretching into lengthy group improvisations. Marsella’s piano playing has developed a number of unique characteristics he elevates Zorn’s music into a notably personal performance (it would be amazing to see another piano trio record any part of this classically inspired series, the opportunities for individual expression appear broad and well suited to multiple interpretations). As with the impromptu form in its generally recognized, albeit slightly out of fashion, style, the trio mixes a number of different musical structures and contexts. Roeder’s driving bass lines flow steadily alongside Marsella’s occasionally bright, singsong runs.

Nocturnes, per its traditional style, is a fascinating blend of the impromptus and ballades, with a warmth and lushness that feels like a natural outgrowth of the trio’s years of working closely together. In eight nocturnes over 40 minutes, many of the familiar touchstones for Zorn’s classically leaning work show their influence, Alexander Scriabin, Claude Debussy, and the master of the form Fredéric Chopin. Personally, after spinning these four albums nonstop, I’d add elements of Francis Poulenc and Gabriel Fauré to the list (for both Impromptusand * Nocturnes * , truthfully), influences that have been less overtly prevalent in Zorn’s music in the past, but the depth in the piano-bass voicing recalls early 20th century French explorations. Deep into the album, “Nocturne Nr. 6” and “Nocturne Nr. 7” shimmer, with Roeder playing some gorgeously inventive bass counterpoint.

I haven’t yet seen what more might be coming in this book of music, though one can reasonably guess there will likely be an album of sonatas, serenades, divertimenti, or perhaps a collective of singular forms like toccata or rondo. Zorn previously composed and released a set of études, The Turner Études, with pianist Stephen Gosling, which, for those who want to go deep into Zorn’s compositional language, works almost like a Rosetta Stone, with its quotes and recursions of various melodic snippets from previous albums and books of music. With this ongoing book of music for piano trio, however, Marsella, Roeder, and Smith are playing music that feels less moored to the past, ironically, instead striking out to a challengingly melodious future.

Sute for Piano

https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=8389

Ballades

https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=9310

Impromptus

https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=9322

Nocturnes

https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=9326