Joseph Neff, The Vinyl District
Pianist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, Yale grad, Rhodes scholar and sharp dresser Zucker has three prior releases on ESP Disk, but I’ll confess to just getting hip to him now. He’s responsible for a handful of projects, with this eight-part suite inspired by Rachel Kushner’s novel The Flamethrowers the latest; based on its sustained power at just over an hour I’m eager to hear them all. The instrumental lineup of Zucker on keys, Adam O’Ferrill on trumpet, Eric Trudell on tenor sax, and Tyshawn Sorey on drums places this solidly in the jazz zone, but Zucker’s compositional fortitude never gets misplaced, and while there are certainly passages that are aptly pegged as abstract, Weighting isn’t an improv free-for-all. But racket? Yes, the quartet can kick up a good one.