1 Too Tinkerbell
2 Pass The Magic Hat
3 Trevor's Luffa Complex
4 Capricorn Climber
5 Bottom Of A Well
6 Big Band Ball
7 Pi Is Irrational
8 Dreamers In A Daze
9 Too Tinkerbell Coda

Double Bass – Trevor Dunn
Drums, Glockenspiel – Tom Rainey
Piano, Producer – Kris Davis
Saxophone – Ingrid Laubrock
Viola – Mat Maneri

Relocating from her native Canada to New York City, pianist Kris Davis has infused her imposing talents into New York City's unconventional, downtown-like scene. She once again aligns her compositional and improvisation expertise with like-minded artists, who frequently transition the jazz idiom into a boundless vista. Hence, the album projects a topsy-turvy and rather oscillating aura, featuring the musicians' use of counterpoint, space, and emphatic exchanges. They mix it up, while also stretching themes to the hilt amid several introspective interludes that intimate a time warp of sorts.

"Big Band Ball" commences as a spooky foray, perhaps hinting at encounters from ungodly influences. Here, Davis locks in with violaist Mat Maneri and bassist Trevor Dunn's rhythmic plucking that conjures emotive responses and opens the floodgates for drummer Tom Rainey's lyrical rim-shots and asymmetrical tom hits. Imagery of a revolving panorama comes to fruition, heightened by saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock's yearning lines via a loose groove, implanted with a multipart structural component. With snappy backbeats and Davis' animated voicings, the band merges a whimsical scenario with exploratory dialogues.

Davis' significant compositional skills are evident throughout. Moreover, she leaves quite a bit of room for invention, yet sustains a semi-structured game plan that recurrently shuns the norm, even when discussing the freer realm of jazz. ---Glenn Astarita, allaboutjazz.com

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1. Ten Exorcists
2. Desolation and Despair
3. Intermission Music
4. Massive Threads
5. Dancing Marlins
6. Evidence
7. Leaf-Like
8. Slow Growing

Kris Davis – piano

The first five minutes of "Ten Exorcists," the opening track of Massive Threads by pianist Kris Davis, consists of minimalist repetitive percussive playing of her prepared piano. The Steve Reich-like repetition mimics percussive tape-loops that cease, but the momentum endures and lays the foundation for her solo.

This solo outing benefits from Davis' classically trained ear, the follow-up to her first solo attempt Aeriol Piano (Clean Feed, 2011). Her background has earned her praise, writing for jazz ensembles led by Ingrid Laubrock and Tony Malaby, and for her piano trio and a collaborative unit Paradoxical Frog.

The title track, originally written for six pianists, opens with Davis overdubbing just one additional track over her playing. The eleven-minute piece begins as a dance, then thickens with gargantuan chords that rumble with a (not-distant) thunder. The heaviness of the storm gives way to a music box sound of simplicity played under clearing skies.

Davis' ability to link modern composers with jazz makes her music challenging and ultimately interesting. She melds Iannis Xenakis' abstractions with Keith Jarrett's expression. Her use of rhythmic timing—as on "Dancing Marlins" and "Leaf Like"— levitate the spirit, while the introspective "Slow Growing" exhibits a meditative maturity to her playing.

Her take on Thelonious Monk's "Evidence," the only cover on the recording, eschews the surprise of Monk for a sort of hallucinogenic effect. The dream-like state summoned suggests the near catatonic state the great man was imprisoned in, at his life's end. It is easy to imagine Monk recalling this tune from the foggy state of his final days. ---Mark Corroto, allaboutjazz.com

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