Search - Wayne Horvitz, Zony Mash :: American Bandstand

Wayne Horvitz calls American Bandstand "Zony Mash unplugged" in the CD's liner notes, a reference to this same ensemble's electric alter ego. With the identical lineup to Zony, Horvitz plays lyrical, stark piano throughout Bandstand. He opens with "Ben's Music," a quilted piece made of fragments that Horvitz and Young piece together over a gentle, off-time vamp. "Prepaid Funeral" has a puckish quality that owes a debt to Thelonious Monk, and elsewhere an assortment of moods waltz by. Most of Bandstand is very, very low-key. "In the Ballroom" is a funky exception, but even its groove comes more from Lowe and Young than from Horvitz. He's there, though, playing a hard-bop frame around the melody, giving it a brush of Horace Silver. As Horvitz showed eloquently on his Some Order, Long Understood trio with William Parker and Butch Morris in 1983, he's a master of piano moods. --Andrew Bartlett