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Angelica Sanchez: Sparkle Beings

By Richard J Salvucci
August 26, 2022
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A famous philosopher once said "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." This is something of a problem for a reviewer. If the music is stunning—unexpectedly so—then the logical thing is to simply write that. But then it is possible to end up end up well out of one's depth.

If the rhythm section is

Billy Hart

drums
b.1940

" data-original-title="" title="">Billy Hart and

Michael Formanek

bass, acoustic
b.1958

" data-original-title="" title="">Michael Formanek, well, things simply get better as you go on from there.

Angelica Sanchez

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Angelica Sanchez is a pianist of great depth and imagination and deserving of the superlatives that are sometimes carelessly tossed around in reviews. For anyone whose taste runs to both Ravel and Carl Ruggles, this recording may give cause for pause. In a good way. About matters of technique and the like it is best to defer to a pianist. But the recording overall is simply beautiful and will repay (and withstand) repeated listenings.

Some of

Mary Lou Williams

piano
1910 - 1981

" data-original-title="" title="">Mary Lou Williams' later work may not be as familiar as, say "Roll Em," and really verges on the avant-garde. "A Fungus Amungus" is one of those things. S��nchez really stretches out, from the dissonant introduction to a sly swinging interlude of Hart and Formanek which somehow resonates with

Wayne Shorter

saxophone
1933 - 2023

" data-original-title="" title="">Wayne Shorter's "Witch Hunt" and then on to a repeated, choppy figure in an odd meter. "Generational Bonds" features Hart's subtle brushwork as the piano gently meanders along and eases into four— the shifting rhythms make sense as improvised. Sanchez does like repeated figures, but as stable anchors before she goes elsewhere, including a blues lick or two. "Sparkly Beings" almost opens with an audible sigh. It is music for seeing spirits, literally. It may be a tad ornate and mannered, but this is, after all, risk-taking, improvised music. Here S��nchez and Formanek start a figured trade into an open form and start pushing back into four once more, maybe halfway through. They end up there too. All part of the chase.

Do not be deceived. This is not some kind of lost-in-the-woods Mexican abstract music, references to the volcanos Popo and Izta ("A Sleeping Lady and the Giant that Watches Over Her")or "Preludios" notwithstanding. It is challenging modernist music, and superbly listenable as well.

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Track Listing

A Fungus Amungus; Generational Bonds; With (Exit); Phantasmic Friend; Preludio a un Preludio; Sparkly Beings; Sleeping Lady and the Giant that Watches Over Her.

Personnel

Angelica Sanchez

piano

Billy Hart

drums

Michael Formanek

bass, acoustic

Album information

Title: Sparkle Beings | Year Released: 2022 | Record Label: Sunnyside Records

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