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Min Rager: First Steps

By Raul d'Gama Rose
November 9, 2009
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It is not often that a woman is given much elbowroom in contemporary music, no matter how good she may be. However, when she is as good as Min Rager on First Steps, more than elbowroom had better be made for her and her piano. True, Rager has been preceded by a celestial pantheon of female pianists, including towering personalities

Mary Lou Williams

piano
1910 - 1981

" data-original-title="" title="">Mary Lou Williams and

Marian McPartland

piano
1918 - 2013

" data-original-title="" title="">Marian McPartland, the elusive

Jane Getz

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Jane Getz and

Geri Allen

piano
1957 - 2017

" data-original-title="" title="">Geri Allen. To stake her claim and strut her stuff in a gallery with vaunted company requires a singular brilliance; Rager has this in abundance.

Min Rager is an unbridled piano virtuoso with a large heart, creative spirit and wonderful, sinewy style. Rager also has a flair for the dramatic and for making the keys tell stories which captivate and bring rapture to the attentive ear. She has a bright, skipping manner and often lets her right hand ascend scales with alacrity, as if she were leaping through a bowling green. Her left hand strikes chords and notes with erudite tone and color. She will sometimes repeat a note twice, extracting a completely different meaning from its abundant timbral overtones. There are no half measures in her playing, and there is great elasticity in her solos; always a solid beginning, a tantalizing stretch down the middle and a resolute end.

Rager's compositions are mature and have a great feeling for the blues. Paying tribute to human triumph in the tradition of an African-American idiom is no easy task. However, the heartfelt inner sensitivity and the depth of soul enables Rager to sing with the sensibility of musician who has paid her dues too, albeit at a young age. Although this should need no explanation, it does bear mention because the blues is the mother of jazz and not every musician today is steeped in it. To Min Rager it appears to be second nature and this not only a rare gift, but also a credential that speaks volumes for her beckoning genius. The stamp of Rager's creativity is all over First Steps.

Rager's music is anchored in inventive bebop sensibility. "Nothing to Gain, Nothing to Lose" burns rapidly, as the rumor of a raid. "First Steps" is a refreshingly clever nod toward modal music and

John Coltrane

saxophone
1926 - 1967

" data-original-title="" title="">John Coltrane "Giant Steps." "Bella," "Persistence of Memory," "Song of Love" and "Portrait of Miles" are gorgeous ballads in the grand,

Billy Strayhorn

piano
1915 - 1967

" data-original-title="" title="">Billy Strayhorn manner. Bassist, Fraser Hollins plays an unforgettably lush melodic solo on "Song of Love" and trumpeter

Kevin Dean

" data-original-title="" title="">Kevin Dean displays fine chops on "Song of Love" and "Miles." "Embrace" could have been entitled "Abraço," in that warm Brazilian embrace of the tradition of

Antonio Carlos Jobim

piano
1927 - 1994

" data-original-title="" title="">Antonio Carlos Jobim and

Joao Gilberto

vocals
1931 - 2019

" data-original-title="" title="">Joao Gilberto. "Always Near to You," a duet shared with husband/pianist, Josh Rager, is completely captivating in the grand manner of

Herbie Hancock

piano
b.1940

" data-original-title="" title="">Herbie Hancock and

Chick Corea

piano
1941 - 2021

" data-original-title="" title="">Chick Corea

On the evidence of this record, Min Rager has not simply arrived; it is already time to pay her homage.

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Track Listing

Nothing to Gain, Nothing to Lose; First Steps; Bella; Persistence of Memory; Passing; Song of Love; Portrait of Miles; Embrace; Goodbye Manhattan; Always Near to You.

Personnel

Min Rager

piano

Min Rager: piano; Kevin Dean: trumpet; Donny Kennedy: alto saxophone; Fraser Hollins: bass (2, 5-7); Alec Walkington: bass (1, 8, 9); Andre White: drums; Walt Weiskopf: tenor saxophone (4); Josh Rager (10).

Album information

Title: First Steps | Year Released: 2009 | Record Label: Effendi Records

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