Alex Sipiagin

Horizons

Blue Room

Horizons is trumpeter/flugelhornist and composer Alex Sipiagin’s twenty-seventh album as a leader. Having covered just two of those, both on Posi-Tone – Upstream (on these pages) and Ascent to the Blues, Sipiagin impressed with his challenging compositions, fiery playing, and improvisational talent.  This is his second for Blue Room, following 2019’s NoFo Skies. The Russian-born trumpeter spent the better part of four decades here in the states before relocating to Italy in 2020. He comments on some shifts in his tonal approach since moving there, some of which is heard on this recording. “My improvisations and compositions have more space, more air, more stopping to process what I feel. When I arrived from Russia, I felt I wasn’t good enough compared to the Americans – the real cats. I always felt I needed to prove something. I no longer have this battle mood. I just want to play my music and do the best I can.”

Sipiagin has long associations with most of his bandmates here. This is his eleventh recording with saxophone great Chris Potter who returns along with these same players from NoFo Skies, his last U.S. based effort – bassist Matt Brewer, drummer Eric Harland, and a favorite pianist of mine John Escreet (check the review of his recent at the epicenter of your dreams released June 7) who also plays Prophet 6 synthesizer. Notably there are eight Sipiagin originals and two from longtime friend and mentor of sorts Pat Matheny who wrote the two specifically for Sipiagin and this ensemble.

Sipiagin’s grounding as a member of the Gil Evans Orchestra, the George Gruntz Orchestra, and the Mingus Big Band along with tenures with Dave Holland and Michael Brecker invariably molded his bent for unpredictability, complex harmonic textures, earthy melodies that never stray too far from the blues, a knack for changing up meters within the same composition, and an all-out fervent, energetic attack. Noted jazz journalist Ted Panken, who has written the notes for this album as well as six previous, states that it’s “Sipiagin’s most completely realized project from start to finish.” For my two cents, there’s a blistering, pulsating energy to this one that exceeds his aggressive Ascent to the Blues. Potter, Escreet, and Matheny’s two compositions certainly are a big part of that, not to minimize the bass-drum tandem either.

The opening Matheny penned “While You Weren’t Looking” is a blistering expose of Sipiagin’s stratospheric trumpet playing, Potter’s fierce improvisation and the boiler room stoking of this powerful rhythm section. It moves with blinding speed, which Matheny deadpanned in his notes to the score – “to give you guys something that you might not be able to sight-read the first time you saw it…lol,” adding that he’s provided Potter “a few notes off the horn-but I am pretty sure he can make them happen.”  The volcanic climax alone will take one’s breath away.  The massive energy has nowhere to go but to dissipate into the lovely original “Overseen,” conjuring a mood and vibe of Mingus’ “Devil Woman” featuring a riveting dialogue between the trumpeter and Potter (on soprano) while Escreet comps beautifully (as restrained as I’ve heard him) on both piano and synth. There are strains of Wayne Shorter here as well detected mostly in Potter’s reaching soprano.

“Clean Cut,” “Jumping Ahead,” and “Lost” all trace to the leader’s move to Italy. In “Clean Cut” his trademark metric shifts are meant to reference psychic shifts such as excitement of the move with a line that goes from 4/4 to 5/4 and back to 4/4 in one section while the middle section characterized mostly by his and Potter’s hard-hitting improvisations and Escreet’s rapid runs signifying anxiety and nervousness. Meanwhile a whirlwind of activity from Harland and Brewer boils underneath. “Jumping Ahead” is about acclimation and is inspired by Hermeto Pascoal’s use of repetitive melodies and harmonies. Here too the metric shift as Sipiagin, Escreet (acoustic piano), and Potter deconstruct and reshape the melody as only they can, their personal styles most evident. “Lost” is arguably the most boisterous of the three, again with metric shifts, and Escreet making it a bit denser with the synth. Sipiagin comments that the compositional approach, mixing the exhilarating with the relaxed owes to Dave Holland. Around the three-and-a-half-minute mark, one does indeed feel ‘lost’ in the dizzying array of sonics, resolved with a peaceful exit.

The requisite ballad comes from Matheny with the peacefully flowing “When Is Now?” featuring a sterling Potter-Sipiagin exchange with the leader on flugelhorn. The three pieces that follow “Horizon 1, 2, and 3” are mostly spontaneous improvisations that occurred toward the end of the session, yet, like the others, traversing an array of moods, textures, and tempos with contrapuntal lines, echo effects, and the blending of acoustic. Harland’s mix of precision and creative flairs stand out most through the three pieces, with the wave-like “Horizon 3” evoking Weather Report in some respects. Sipiagin’s closing “AIVA-tion” nods to a local café in their Italian village named Aiva. It resembles “Overseen” with its undulating quality and lack of solos; the pairing of the front line set against a connected rhythm section.

As stated, Horizons may well be Sipiagin’s best as a leader and one of the most notable jazz entries so far this year.

• Jim Hynes

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