Eric McPherson - Continuum

Smalls 33

An onion analogy is especially apt when describing the New York jazz scene. Layers exist within layers with players routinely moving between them as collaborative ventures expand and ebb. Drummer Eric McPherson is a member of the Smalls circle, that loose cadre of creative musicians that operated out of the eponymous club in the Nineties. His musical activities also included a 15-year apprenticeship with Jackie McLean and a briefer tenure with Andrew Hill just prior to the pianist’s passing. McPherson also helps run MPI Studio, a performance/recording space owned by Nasheet Waits that also serves as the disc’s birthing place. MPI stands for Multi-Percussion Instrumentalist and it doubles as a fitting encapsulation of McPherson’s approach to the drumkit, polyrhythmic, with a fluid touch that consistently merges power and grace. His rhythms and fills feel full without miring in uncessary clutter or resorting to attention-grabbing bashing. All of the aforementioned experiences funnel positively into this debut disc as a leader and suggest that the date was well past due.

McPherson sequences the program like a lean LP, keeping the music corraled to the span of two vinyl sides. The relative economy still leaves time enough to pack in a manifold summary of his interests starting with the two-part “3rio Suite” in the company of saxophonist and childhood friend Abraham Burton and bassist John Hebert. Burton’s soprano almost sounds like a musette voicing slithery modal patterns against the surging oceanic backdrop built by Hebert and McPherson. Hebert seizes on a deep groove in the piece’s second part, the gritty snap of his strings heightening to intensity of the interplay. “Misako” nods to Hill in its dark chordal structure and the addition of second bassist Dezron Douglas. The tandem makes a second appearance on the disc closing “De Javu Monk” stoking a fair bit of pizzicato steam beneath Burton’s slowly boiling Wayne Shorter-inspired phrasings. Rounding out the program are “Black Pearl”, which teams McPherson’s kit with Trevor Todd’s yirdaki (didjeridu) as accompaniment for an anecdotal spoken recitation in memory of the drummer’s mother, and a rundown of the McLean tune “The Collective Expression” that carries fusionary touches in the presence of Rhodes and a patina of electronic echo around Burton’s alto. A lengthy gestation period makes for fully mature work and McPherson’s album certainly proves such to be so.

~ Derek Taylor