Search - Simon Nabatov :: Tough Customer

Startlingly original piano trio music

N. Dorward | Toronto, ON Canada | 12/27/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Simon Nabatov hails from Moscow but has spent time in New York & Cologne. This trio disc demonstrates a tremendously assured talent that comfortably draws on the contrapuntalism & technical flash of his classical background & a wideranging synthesis of jazz idioms & even Indian music (on the 2nd track, "The Sage"). He has the litheness of a pianist out of the Herbie Hancock school but his music is completely different in orientation--astrigent, unapologetically complex even as it swings in unusual & compound meters. It all works, in part because of the skill of his first-rate band--Mark Helias on bass, Tom Rainey on drums. There are some brilliantly complex tunes here: try "Tough Customer", a 7/4 tune which gradually unfolds into a pell-mell "Giant Steps"-style cooker. "Simple Simon", on the other hand, is a rousing gospel hymn which is unexpectedly beautiful, which as the closing track work dissolves the astringency of some of the preceding music. There are two tracks by Helias on here, including one, "Professor of the Air Science", which I'd encountered before on a Marilyn Crispell disc (_Contrasts_). "The Sage" works through a ballad passage to climax in a remarkable theme that is written in alternating bars of 5 and 7 beats--surprisingly it doesn't sound awkward at all.Highly recommended. I gather Nabatov has more recently been recording for Leo, with excellent results. This earlier album is certainly worth investigating. The confidently contrapuntal piano playing reminds me at once of Marilyn Crispell & Brad Mehldau, but Nabatov really doesn't sound like anyone else."