Mara Trio Rosenbloom - Respiration

2020 release

"On Respiration the pianist is in a more traditional setting with the assured invention of her trio of bassist Sean Conly and drummer Chad Taylor. The album opens with a brief improvisation on a theme by Amina Claudine Myers before morphing into a Rosenbloom original, “The Choo”, which calls on memories of later ‘60s R&B-fueled jazz. Here Conly’s forward-moving improvisations aspirate the melodic structure and solo sections (the magic between pianist and bassist does bring on thoughts of the first great Bill Evans Trio; ‘nuff said).

But listen carefully, too, to the reconstructions of Juan Tizol’s noted “Caravan”, a major aspect of the Duke Ellington catalog for decades. Respiration’s fourth selection bridges the immortal theme to a Crothersesque fantasia, which is utterly riveting, nearly ten minutes long and nary a moment wasted: modal happenings, atonal escapades and rhythmic revampings of Tizol bring the ear both back and forward simultaneously. By the ninth and closing cut, “Caravan Reprise – Keep Marching”, Rosenbloom and company seem to have driven the past out of the work, building and empowering it for the fight-back of these days.

More than anything else, this piece carries the banner of a Carla Bley arrangement, bursting with the essential elements even as it lures the ear into unheralded, previously unimagined territory. And it’s no happenstance that Bley has always and, as recently as 2020, featured themes of social justice in her catalog. How much longer before Rosenbloom stands at the helm of the world’s stage? Anything beyond immediately post-COVID would be criminal."

John Pietaro (January, 2021)
The New York City Jazz Records