Album Review: Rez Abbasi's 'Things To Come'

Guitarist Rez Abbasi was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and grew up in California listening to rock music. Pianist Vijay Iyer and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, both of Indian heritage, join him on his latest album, Things To Come. The music fuses South Asian, rock, and jazz influences, and its extended, sinuous melodies swirl through vacillating rhythmic courses.

Throughout the recording, two qualities are present: capriciousness, resulting from abrupt structural shifts, and, an inviting and pleasing harmonic atmosphere. Gliding lines run headlong into rhythmically jagged brambles, and rock beats briefly disappear, to return soon after as tripping, uneven palpitations. The harmonic textures, on the other hand, tend to be sweeping and grand, and provide a sense of stability where the rhythms do not.
This harmonic stability frames the improvisations of Iyer and Mahanthrappa in a way that makes their playing, stunning as it is challenging, sound more initially alluring. Their solos dart agitatedly, but with slightly less of the sense of urgency and trepidation that often characterizes their own music. Abbasi’s playing is marked by a contrasting lyricism that falls more in line with the vocal style of his wife Kiran Ahwulia, featured on four of the tracks.

Highlights:
•”Dream Suite” – the opening track of the album, this piece sets the capricious tone of the album, filtering through different levels of intensity with each soloist, and alternating between a driving, off-kilter rock beat, and intermissions of craggy rhythmic breaks. The song climaxes with a solo by Mahanthrappa, in which he at times adopts the nasal timbre of a traditional Indian shenai, and erupts into frenzied flares.

•”Things To Come” – a duet between Abbasi and Ahwhulia, this short piece is haunting and beautiful. It blossoms while tethered to a drone, and provides a respite from the rhythmic propulsion in the other tracks.
•”Realities of Chromaticism” – unraveling gradually out of an angular sequence of chords, on this song drummer Dan Weiss flirts with the pulse for long periods, grasping it tightly and then abandoning it, and allowing it to morph into a blazing and angry clip, and then hammer away at one third of the implied tempo. The piece is mercurial and ominous, with hints of serenity scattered throughout, and colored with Mike Block’s cello.
Release Date:
August 25th, 2009 on Sunnyside Records

Personnel:
•Rez Abbasi – Guitars
•Rudresh Mahanthappa – Alto Saxophone
•Vijay Iyer – Piano
•Johannes Weidenmueller – Bass
•Dan Weiss – Drums
•Kiran Ahluwalia – Vocals
•Mike Block – Cello

Track List:
1.Dream Suite
2.Air Traffic
3.Hard Colors
4.Things To Come
5.Why Me Why Them
6.Within Sanity
7.Realities of Chromaticism
8.Insulin
http://jazz.about.com/od/2009releases/fr/RezAbassiThingstoCome.htm