My original intention for this post was an album round-up of about a dozen new releases with links and short descriptions. But after listening to recent music from Vinnie Sperrazza, I decided to shift my focus to this drummer, one of today’s most exciting musicians. Sperrazza has released two excellent but different albums – Saturday, which came out last March, and a sequel of sorts, Sunday, released in January of this year. These two releases are a delight – each in their own way – and demonstrate two sides to Sperrazza’s music. Let’s discuss both, and my goal is for you to check these out and maybe even listen along.
Vinnie Sperrazza – Saturday
(Fresh Sound New Talent, released March 4, 2023; Album graphic design – Jacob Sacks)
Buy from Fresh Sound New Talent
Stream on Apple
Stream on Spotify
Ethan Iverson – piano
Michael Formanek – bass
Vinnie Sperrazza – drums
Saturday is a trio album of Sperrazza on drums with pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Michael Formanek. While the music is in the tried-and-true piano trio format and sticks to a theme and solos design, that’s a strength rather than a weakness. The engagement and dialogue with jazz tradition is one of the highlights of this album. Sperrazza wrote all the tunes on Saturday, which are delightfully inventive. Innovation that is based in tradition, that’s what jazz is all about, right? I’ve found the music addictive and played this album over and over. Let’s talk about what makes Saturday so special.
First, I want to highlight a really attractive quality apart from the music itself. While this blog is not about evaluating audio fidelity, the sound of this recording itself is remarkable and worth appreciating. Saturday was taped at Van Gelder Studio, where legendary albums like A Love Supreme, Point of Departure, Fuschia Swing Song, and so many others were created. The close-up, warm presence of the instruments on Saturday is an absolute pleasure, especially Sperrazza’s drums – the cymbals are so vivid you feel you can reach out and touch them. The recording also does justice to the high notes of Iverson’s right hand and the low register of Formanek’s bass. It’s so good to have this hallowed recording studio back; musicians, if you want to make your next record sound great, you know what to do!
But of course, it’s the music itself we’re here for, which I found to be exceptional. Saturday moves quickly from one highlight to another, and I’ll run down (most) of the tracks with you. The album starts with “Stephen Paul,” a tribute to drummer Paul Motion. I especially liked Iverson’s piano here – on this opening track, he plays the pattern from the opening Prelude & Fugue of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. This was a really lovely touch! It feels appropriate that Sperrazza starts Saturday with a tribute to Paul Motion, who was the first subject of Sperrazza’s excellent Chronicles Substack. Sperrazza’s style, especially his wide multidirectional cymbal beat, is right out of the Motion school.
The next tune is the title track, “Saturday,” a blues. In a recent interview, Sperrazza called this his most successful attempt at a blues so far, and the result more than fulfills that humble promise. I love the development of the tune into a groover with a touch of boogie-woogie – what Sperrazza calls “the Duke Ellington thing” on his Substack page. “Don’t Mention the War” is a sly reference to the British TV comedy Fawlty Towers. Here, the band has fun with the bouncy-poignant melody, and Iverson gets into great use of the sustain pedal over tasty drumming. “Veiled Promise” is a hushed ballad and a feature for Iverson, who develops his solo with style and interesting ideas. If I’m hearing it right, he quotes the second strain of the love theme from Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, which, given Iverson’s recent controversial New York Times essay, is fascinating. Sperrazza again demonstrates his talent for melody with the Burt Bacharach-like “Just Forget It,” a title that shows his modest humor – far from forgettable, it’s quite memorable! “Angular Saxon” is a drum feature with layered and dynamic use of cymbals and a balance of structure and sonics. To me, Sperrazza’s solo echoes not just Motion but Max and Tony – but really, he sounds like himself.
Many of the highlights of Saturday come in the second half, surely a sign of an album with no weak tracks. “Ellipsis” has an effortless lyricism, with the band locking into a glowing pulse over which Iverson plays unhurried ideas. The choice to have Formanek solo with freedom through the head and during Iverson’s playing on “Ellipsis” is brilliant – the bass playing here is Formanek’s most striking on the album. The tempo ramps up with “Sunday,” a song based on rhythm changes. Over a quick groove, the band jumps from one chorus to the next, pushed on by Sperrazza’s pulsating cymbals. The band does justice to the Walton/Jones/Higgins paradigm of piano trio music here, another example of this group’s relationship to tradition and music history. Lyricism returns with “A Place Where Nothing Happens,” based on the chorus of the Talking Heads song “Heaven.” Iverson’s solo on this tune is his best on the record for me. The album closes with “One Hour,” a tune Sperrazza previously recorded in 2017 on the excellent Juxtaposition. While that version allowed each soloist five choruses over a 28-bar form (12+2, twice; hope I hear that right!), here Iverson and Sperrazza take three roiling split choruses that appropriately evoke Cecil Taylor’s “Air.” At a minute and 52 seconds, the performance is like an exclamation point, bringing Saturday to a satisfying conclusion.
Saturday is a rewarding album that benefits from repeat listening (which I’ve done with pleasure). I’m not sure this record got a lot of notice last year – when I googled it, I only found two reviews – one on the Marlbank blog and another in the May 2023 New York City Jazz Record. Surprising! This record deserves more notice – you should listen.
Vinnie Sperrazza Apocryphal – Sunday
(Loyal Label, released January 19, 2024; Cover collage and design by Espen Freiberg)
Loren Stillman – tenor and soprano saxophone
Brandon Seabrook – guitar, banjo, mandolin
Eivind Opsvik – bass
Vinnie Sperrazza – drums
Buy from Bandcamp
Stream on Apple
Stream on Spotify
If Saturday is full of satisfying melodies, Sunday is an open-eared adventure that shows a much different side of Sperrazza – this is one for the progressive music fan. The concept was born a decade ago while contemplating the word “apocryphal,” which Sperrazza wrote about on his blog :
“Around the time I kept noticing the word, I wrote a tune with a melody that sounded sort of like ‘My Heart Belongs To Daddy,’ but with a tonic chord that kept switching willy-nilly between major and minor. When I played the song through, with its fake Cole Porter melody, and changes that only sort-of worked, I realized: ‘this tune is apocryphal.'”
The eponymous opening track of that 2014 album is a statement of purpose for a band that plays songs created outside conventional rules of structure and instrumentation because this music tells new stories. Sperrazza convened the perfect band to realize this concept – with the leader on drums, saxophonist Loren Stillman, bassist Eivind Opsvik, and guitarist/banjo player Brandon Seabrook, they play tunes that are adjacent to tradition and then break the rules to make something idiosyncratic and memorable.
The new album, Sunday, is the third studio album from the Apocryphal quartet and is their most focused release yet. What I loved most is how this record feels like an unfolding narrative, something Sperrazza makes explicit in his post about the album. Too often, improvised music gets mired in formula and loses sight of the raison d’être of jazz, the “sound of surprise.” Sunday avoids clichés with its episodic structure, and the writing, arranging, and playing have those surprises at every turn – you never really know what awaits you next.
But just because this group favors rule-breaking does not mean it has left melody behind. For example, the opening track, “Presence,” starts with over a minute of Loren Stillman playing a beautiful melody, unadorned and alone on tenor saxophone. Sperrazza says this tune depicts waking up and how it “changes something about the air around you.” Stillman captures that idea perfectly – the see-saw sax lines have a quiet perfection and evoke the idea of a dawning consciousness. Stillman’s sax is followed by Brandon Seabrook playing Derek Bailey-like “cracked” ideas, and then the sax/guitar/bass play this material together. The tune’s ending is tagged by gritty guitar feedback, maybe signaling that our protagonist has been rudely awoken from a somnolent dream. The opening track says a lot about the clarity of Sperrazza’s concept – Sunday is an experimental album at heart, but it does not lose the listener because it centers simple, beautiful melody alongside a skewering of the rules.
Interestingly, there are no drums on the opening track, and the following track, “First Weather,” is just Sperrazza – a drum solo that subtly builds both musical and narrative momentum. Those first two tracks introduce the listener to a progression of textures and moods that are combined when the band plays “Caffeine Dream,” the standout performance for me. Here, the drums and bass dig into a slinky groove, over which Stillman plays the melody and then a memorable solo. But the real spark comes from Seabrook, riffing with an incredibly transparent and energetic tone and playing a solo at the end of the track that is pure fire. “Caffeine Dream” has been a bit of a soundtrack for me since I’ve heard it, and it’s been on repeat for days.
That’s just the first three tracks. The remainder of the album is full of excellent music, and running at 38 minutes, Sperrazza knows how to avoid overstaying his welcome. If you play this album in the background, there is bound to be some idea or gesture that will jump out at you and draw your attention. Later, some small bit of music you heard will pop into your head – like Seabrook’s rhythmically wild banjo at the end of “PM Drift” (I didn’t know a banjo could phrase like Cecil Taylor!) or Sperrazza’s authentic rock beat on “Sundowning (Culture Is Cosmetic).” Sunday is an insistently diverting album that presents an eclectic but coherent vision. After hearing Sunday, this group has become one of my favorite ones in music, and I look forward to seeing the Apocryphal quartet live.
There you have it, Saturday and Sunday. These are two excellent albums that rejuvenate the mind and soul but are very different, just like the contrasting days of your weekend. Sperrazza was somebody I had only heard about before listening to these albums, but now he is planted at the top of the artists making music today music for me. I’ll be looking for what he does next, and you should, too!
More Vinnie Sperrazza Links:
Listen to Apocryphal
The Apocryphal quartet has captured my ear; I love its open-minded and exciting approach to music. If you enjoy Sunday, check out the prior albums by this group: their eponymous 2014 release, 2017’s Hide Ye Idols, and a lo-fi recording of a 2015 gig released in 2020. All these records feature unpredictable, eclectic, and exciting music.
A Substack Supreme
If you’ve come this far, I know you’ll subscribe to Sperrazza’s Substack page, Chronicles. Don’t take my word for it; you can trust Nate Chinen when he says Chronicles is a “must-subscribe, must-read.” One of the things that makes Sperrazza’s writing so great is his obvious passion for the history of music, combined with the knowledge he brings to the table, especially about drummers. I love his posts on the underrated Phillip Wilson, TNB favorites Ed Blackwell and Gerald Cleaver, and the three-part centennial celebration of Max Roach. Sperrazza also writes about non-drummers, and I can hardly wait for what he publishes next.
Two other new albums are out!
This post has focused on Sperrazza’s two recent leader sessions, but he’s on two more new albums you should also check out. Both released on February 16, Sperrazza is co-leader with saxophonist Charlotte Greve and bassist Chris Tordini on The Choir Invisible’s Town of Two Faces and also plays drums on Mike McGinnis’ Outing: Road Trip II. Like Saturday and Sunday, these are two very different records – the first focusing on free and expressive interplay with no piano, and the latter a romp through large band orchestrations in a variety of styles from Carla Bley to Count Basie. Sperrazza, whose drumming is so flexible, is a first-call drummer for settings like these and more.
Interview on YouTube
To prepare for this review, I watched an excellent interview on YouTube on the Thanks For Dropping By channel. I especially like the section (29 minutes in) where Sperrazza demonstrates the complexity of traditional rhythms and how getting an authentic feel is part of a lifetime’s work.
Apple calls it Lounge!
At The Necessary Blues, we try to look beyond labels and words that describe genre – those labels can be helpful but also feel like a prison. So I think it’s pretty laughable that Apple Music labels the genre for Saturday “Lounge.” If you use genre descriptions, try to get them right! But on the other hand, maybe somebody searching for “Lounge Music” would benefit from hearing an album full of invention and ideas.
“Saturday and Sunday”
I’m sure this is off-topic, but I can’t write about Saturday and Sunday without thinking about “Saturday and Sunday,” the epochal Jackie McLean tune. The 1963 performance of “Saturday and Sunday” comes from a genuinely killer band: McLean with Grachan Moncur III, Bobby Hutcherson, Eddie Khan, and Tony Williams. In a blog focused on progressive and experimental music, we need to give a nod to the Rosetta’s Stone. You can listen here.