Rich Pelegrin with Neil Welch: Before After

Pianist Rich Pellegrin has fashioned something of a template for creating recorded music—go into the studio in the summer months (when teaching duties have abated somewhat) and lay down a bunch of tracks. Two albums' worth. Then he releases the music a year or two apart, as separate CDs (or vinyl discs or downloads). This was the mode for Solitude: Solo Improvisations (2021) and Passage: Solo Improvisations II (2022), both on OA2 Records; and so it goes with Topography (2024) and this, his 2026 offering, Before After, both on the Slow and Steady label.

The earlier OA2 Records sets were solo piano excursions—introspective, full of displays of supple touches and deep ruminations. The subsequent Slow and Steady discs were (are, in the case of Before After) duo outings—featuring Neil Welch on saxophone. Of the solo outings All About Jazz says, "Passage and Solitude are both timeless gems of the art of the piano trio." Of Topography, AAJ remarked, "A hushed, whisper-in-church feeling prevails. It sounds like a hallowed suite for Whidbey Island."

Whidbey Island is where all four of the three previously-cited albums and Before After were recorded. Pellegrin teaches at the University of Florida. It is a long way from Whidbey Island, in the Puget Sound, offshore from Seattle. Pellegrin records there, in a house of worship called Langley United Methodist Church. That church—and the rains-soaked, wind-swept island—are a part of the Pellegrin sound—the awe and reverence, the soul searching.

For his part, saxophonist Welch can sound as if he is blowing from a source that comes from the Holy Spirit; or he can sound earthbound and robust, issuing brawny tones on his tenor sax when the mood strikes him and the music calls for it. And he sounds as if he is coming out of Heaven itself when he breaks out the soprano horn.

Overall, Before After is a spacious, atmospheric work, held together by the unwavering cohesion of Pellegrin's vision, and perhaps in part by the environs in which it was created.

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