Ab Aeterno - Since the Beginning of Time

The seed of this project rooted in jazz, Middle-Eastern music and Afro-Cuban or South American rhythms - was my desire to record with my musical brother Omer Avital in a setting that would focus on the detail of the piano and the bass. I wanted to share the way in which the two of us vibe together on our instruments, and what I feel is one of my closest musical relationships. Since that idea, and with the addition of Luisito Quintero, it has become so much more. To me, its reveals timeless threads connecting three musicians of different cultures in beautiful harmony. As Malian musician Cheick-Tidiane Seck once told me with a big smile, Musicians are all from the same country.

-Jason Lindner


Tracklisting:
01. Overture 3:21
02. The Gathering 5:27
03. Song for Amos 12:22
04. Ab Aeterno 5:17
05. Monserrate 6:45
06. Renacimiento 6:56
07. Life Light 9:13
08. Sure Thing / Glass Enclosure 6:32
09. G-Point 4:10
10. New Church 4:17

Total time: 64:49 min.

All compositions by Jason Lindner, except #3 by Omer Avital; #4 by Jason Lindner, Omer Avital and Luisito Quintero; #8 by Earl Bud Powell.

Personnel:
Jason Lindner (piano, melodica, mbira); Omer Avital (bass, oud), Luisito Quintero (congas, African brush, bells, bongos, frame drum, maracas, cabash, darbuka, finger cymbals, cajon).
Recorded in New York City at 'The Studio', December 18 & 19, 2004

Sound engineers: Katherine Miller & Eiji Takasugi
Mixed by Frederik Rubens & Jason Lindner
Mastered by Michael Perez-Cisneros
Liner notes: Jason Lindner (Edited by Radhika Philip)

Produced by Jason Lindner
Executive producer: Jordi Pujol
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Review:

"The defining track on Jason Lindner's excellent Ab Aeterno isn't an original composition, it's a medley of two Bud Powell tunes: "Sure Thing" and "Glass Enclosure". Powell balanced bebop and classical idioms wonderfully on these songs and showed that even if the two kinds of music were distant relatives,they still shared a common language.Lindner expands on this idea throughout Ab Aeterno by blending various styles of world music within a jazz context, thus building a complete intertextuality.

The overdubbing and layering of the instruments on "Overture" augurs what
will follow on the rest of the disc. Lindner repeats the same brooding
piano vamp as the bass and percussion of Omer Avital and Luisito Quintero
slowly build toward a melodica / mbira dialogue between Lindner and
Quintero. "The Gathering" is an Afro-Cuban delight with bass and piano in
perfect sync over the foundation of congas. Lindner plays piano with clear, flowing lines and Avital's plucking is so vibrant it's almost vocalese.

"Song For Amos", a tune forged with classical elements and nicely shifting
textures, sounds like something Coltrane's rhythm section would have played
when Trane laid out. Lindner's Tyner-ish trills set up some dynamic
pizzicato by Avital, with the framework highlighted nicely by Quintero's
multi-faceted percussion.

One almost never hears a melodica / lute duo on a jazz recording but that's
what Lindner and Avital pull off on the title track and it works. The
haunting and hypnotic "Monserrate" is the highlight of the disc, brought
together by Lindner's elegant and darling playing over Quintero's simple
percussion and more of Avital's robust pizzicato. Avital plays a beautiful
flamenco riff on the oud on "Renacimiento", a tune that builds a bridge
between Arabic and Latin music, while seamlessly combining Middle Eastern
riffs with a standard blues on "Life Light".

The disc closes with Lindner playing solo on the ironically-titled "New
Church", whose gospel theme is as archetypical as can be. Lindner is a
fabulous pianist and composer and it's a bountiful feast of sounds and
colors that he, Avital and Quintero bring to the table."

-Terrell Holmes
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"Wringing variations from a string of melodic material is one of the reasons
the pianist gets up in the morning. Though he works well with
arrangementshis big band is one of the best in townthe ability to amble
has always been attractive to him. Bassist Omer Avital and percussionist
Luisito Quintero help him create both tension and grace."

-Jim Macnie (Jazz Gallery)
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"Rhythm provides more than a heartbeat for the pianist Jason Lindner. It also seems to fuel his respiratory functions and digestive activity, and maybe his neurons. So its no surprise that Mr. Lindners new album, Ab Aeterno, makes an argument for pulse as the governing force of music through the ages. Nor is it a shock how naturally that argument resonates at the hands of Mr. Lindner and his peers.

Its a trio effort, with Mr. Lindner on piano, mbira and melodica; his longtime associate Omer Avital on bass and oud; and the Venezuelan percussionist Luisito Quintero drawing from what sounds like a carload of shakers, bells and hand drums. Their interplay is rich in insinuation and ostinato. Mr- Lindner isnt afraid to let chords chime, but usually in the service of incantation. He may spell out the melodies of most of his songs, but the deeper stories tend to come from the ground up, where bass and percussion conspire.

Naturally Mr. Quintero emerges as a lead voice. On The Gathering, the first track after a calmly anticipatory overture, his congas bring focus to a slippery odd-metered groove; on Renacimiento his fingers thrum against a frame drum while Mr. Avital fashions a prayerful melody on his oud.

Elsewhere, on tracks like G-point and Song for Amos, the lyrical traditions of Afro-Cuban music are filtered through the harmonic sensibilities of pianists like Chick Corea. But even on a Bud Powell theme, Glass Enclosure, Mr. Lindner seems only partly interested in jazzs idiomatic customs. What matters to him is groove, however it comes.

-Nate Chinen (New York Times)
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Tracklist