Secret Tempo

This trio recording featuring the leader and composer Jonathan Moritz on tenor and soprano saxophones, Shayna Dulberger on acoustic bass and Mike Pride on drums represents the first recording by a long-standing New York experimental jazz trio. This exciting debut, consisting of a suite of pieces composed to explore space, counterpoint, and interaction, introduces audiences to an exciting New York ensemble. The penchant for performing in the context of a pianoless trio has long been common among more open-minded and forward thinking tenor saxophonists. From Sonny Rollins to Hot Cup's own Jon Irabagon, this instrumentation has proved to be a versatile and inspiring vehicle for musicians who desire to explore the space it allows each individual musician. Moritz cites Sonny Rollins and Branford Marsalis' Trio Jeepy as influential predecessors, but his compositions are an attempt to bring in the vocabulary of so-called 'new music' composition: microtonality, serialism, minimalism, and the post-Cage aesthetic. As Moritz intimates in his liner notes, the idea behind the music of 'Secret Tempo' is to explore the sounds and interactions that are created when a group of improvising musicians manipulate musical time. Rather than create music based on steady pulses and consistent densities, Moritz compositions expand and contract as each member of the trio enters and exits the piece from moment to moment. Much jazz criticism of the last half century has emphasized the importance of space in jazz, and as fans of Miles Davis will attest, the absence of sound can be a powerful musical statement. The fluctuating compositions and improvisations of 'Secret Tempo' expose the fertile ground available to musicians if they allow for a wider range of possibilities when silence is considered. Increasing the appeal of such a varied musical collection as the pieces on 'Secret Tempo' is the sound quality of each member's contributions. Moritz' tone is lush and robust and owes a great debt to the big sound tenor men that he cites as influences: Ben Webster, Gene Ammons and Coleman Hawkins. The work of latter day proponents of improvised music on the big horn such as Ellery Eskelin, Tony Malaby, Mark Turner, and John Butcher can also be discerned in his blistering runs, facile use of the altissimo register and tendency to cover the instrument's entire range in a single phrase.