Tyshawn Sorey Mesmerism

Mesmerism is a beautiful, swinging trio meeting led by drummer Tyshawn Sorey featuring two musicians whom he has considered his closest colleagues: pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Matt Brewer. Sorey – a 2017 MacArthur Fellow, Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania, collaborator with Vijay Iyer, Kris Davis, Roscoe Mitchell, Hafez Modirzadeh, Myra Melford, Marilyn Crispell and other musical luminaries – puts forward his vision for Mesmerism as follows: “My intent was to record this project with only an hour or two of rehearsal, and with a group of musicians who never performed on stage together. To that end, Mesmerism is a departure from the recordings I produced that contained thoroughly rehearsed, rigorously notated music for piano trio. For a long time, I felt an intense desire to record some of my favorite songs from the Great American Songbook as well as those by composers whose work I feel should also exist in this canon. Recording Mesmerism with these two wonderful, inspiring musicians inevitably proved to become the finest occasion for me to document my lifelong connection to the ‘straight-ahead’ continuum of this music.”

Multi-awarded drummer and composer Tyshawn Sorey has several elements in his musical personality that work in his favor. Firstly, he always knows where he wants to go regardless of the context he’s playing; secondly, he’s willing to take risks when making music. With Mesmerism, he pays tribute to some of his influences and dabbles in a couple of inventive reworkings of classics from the Great American Songbook.

Continuing is drummer Tyshawn Sorey’s highly-anticipated follow-up to Mesmerism and The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism, his two critically-acclaimed 2022 release that feature this avowed avant-gardist’s surprising forays into classic, swinging jazz. Those two prior releases were voted #4 and #5 best albums of the year, respectively, in the annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll of over 150 jazz critics. In two 4 ½ Star reviews, Downbeat called Mesmerism “wonderfully simple, yet breathtakingly deep” and Off-Off Broadway (featuring saxophonist Greg Osby) “music robust enough to have you believe the energy generated by the group is its own discrete force.”