Laying down the gospel truth: APA laureate Isaiah J. Thompson brings quartet to Jazz Kitchen

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Isaiah Thompson preaches to the people. 

In a busy weekend, I was happy to find room for Isaiah J.  Thompson  and his late set Saturday at the Jazz Kitchen. The 2023 winner of American Piano Awards' Cole Porter Fellowship came back to the scene of his triumph with his current quartet, using his substantial repertoire centered on "The Book of Isaiah," his latest recording.

With him on the bandstand and in complete rapport were Julian Lee, tenor sax; Felix Moseholm, bass, and David Alvarez III, drums. Talking with ease to the crowd as he shared his musical and religious values in the same tidy package, Thompson made good on the jury's decision two years ago here. 

He has his own approach to the jazz piano, saturated in the strong communicative value of music in the black church, with an assertive and technically accomplished personality to put the music across. 

His harmonic palette is thicker from time to time, but it's hinged to the simple declaration of an idiom that is used to forging immediate connection with the spiritual life and the wellsprings of energy in the testifying tradition. His pieces are often structured with slow, out-of-tempo introductions, sometimes with summarizing ensemble codas to match.

Julian Lee was essential and inspired.
"The Highest Calling" was a good example as it opened the second set. After the positive tension of the start, there was a burst of release as the band established a hard-digging mid-tempo statement, followed by a meaty piano solo.  

The climactic ensemble went on for a while once it resumed, opening up space for a varied display of Alvarez's drums.  He would later get his showcase on brushes after Thompson lifted Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday" toward rapturous regions.


A Thompson original, which he described as "like having superpowers on the train to belief," picked up on the train metaphor with coordinated, relentless chugging. A full head of steam powered the piece, resting upon the spiritual uplift so central to this prize-winning pianist.

In one of two exhibitions of the piano trio, Lee's presence was not especially missed, but only in the sense that Thompson with two-man  rhythm support was sufficient to fill out the whole spectrum.

 The saxophone's return was always welcome, however, and the quartet's interpretation of Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love" had an exalted quality right through the final measures of dreamy mystery. Lee's soloing was invariably heart-stirring, acknowledged by the bandleader when he told the audience  that "Julian's been that good for a long time."


[Photos by Rob Ambrose]




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