Search - David Winoground :: Pictures at an Existentialism

Description Let's face it - jazz has been in a rut for a couple of decades now. There are plenty of great players making loads of good albums, but the categories have ossified. For most jazz recording artists, you pick a style, you find a set of rules and you color inside the lines. On Pictures At an Existentialism, David Winogrond changes all that. And that's no small achievement for a leader who happens to be the drummer. Mostly, this is a trio session on which Winogrond yields the spotlight to frontmen Jack Chandler (sax) and Arlan Schierbaum (piano). Neither fills a standard trio role. Chandler plays off Winogrond's rock- and prog-inflected percussion by refusing to follow ordinary changes or predictable blues progressions. Yet he never falls back on off-the-shelf avant-gardism. And Schierbaum, for his part, adds coloration and movement without settling into rhythm-section mode; his solos poke around in cracks that even Brad Mehldau hasn't stuck his fingers into. The album meanders occasionally, but always comes back with a passage that snaps your head around. Most of the compositions are collaborations among the principals, but the disc manages to span the gap between Dvorak and Louis Prima - both of whom are covered here - without ever going "thunk." At a time when so much jazz sounds milky, this one is all meat.