Joe Block: Solo Piano Vol. 1

At 26, Joe Block is already a mature, creative, and disciplined jazz pianist as well as an exceptional composer, arranger, conductor, and educator. His roots are in the Philadelphia area with such mentors/teachers as Tom Lawton. Repeated performances, especially at the Philadelphia's Clef Club and Chris' Jazz Cafe have helped him in sharpening his craft. He transitioned to New York and international aclaim via playing in Wynton Marsalis' Jazz at Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He received his Juilliard/Columbia combined master's/bachelor's degree respectively and studied with the late great Frank Kimbrough, garnered touted music awards, and performed many gigs at festivals and top club venues like Mezzrow and the Village Vanguard. Even in his backstop role as a sideman, his technique and musical imagination were stunning. Block generates excitement that emanates from something hidden within him that is ready to come into being.

With his Solo Album: V1, Block consistently expresses his internal source of creativity in imaginative renditions of American Songbook standards, mostly from the swing era, interspersed with four Thelonious Monk classics. Each track is brief enough (the longest is about 5 minutes) to be heard as a serious musical study, not so different in that respect from a Chopin Nocturne. In other words, it is made of the stuff that propels jazz forward. This came about because, to make the recording, Block went into the studio by himself at night and had access to a Steinway piano with a rich, concert sound that itself was stimulating and enriching.

On first listen, the depth of the performance seems like a "real heartbreaker" in the best sense of Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning (Capitol, 1955) and Songs for Only the Lonely (Capitol, 1958), expressing the sadness of a late night dark bar or apartment. Although it has that blues element, another aspect of advanced jazz, the creation of musical ideas with the least amount of filtration, is really what it is all about. There are two prime examples of that, namely in Henry Mancini's "The Days of Wine and Roses," where Block takes a series of choruses that wind around the tune expressing a kind of existential freedom, and Jerome Kern's "All the Things You Are," where he goes even further into abstraction than Paul Bley in his classic rendition with Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins. All Block does here is play "block" chords. No melody, ornamentation, or rhythmic twists, but with a surprisingly dark and powerful progression at the end.

Except "'Round Midnight," which has its own stark majesty, the way Block does the Monk tunes is rather striking in that he does not so much as "imitate" Monk's eccentricities, as to channel Monk's ability to surprise the listener as well as integrate bop and post-bop with stride rhythm. As one of Block's mentors, Tom Lawton, pointed out, Block's take on "Ruby My Dear," goes further than Monk with a 12-tonish intro reminiscent of the great Austrian composer, Anton Webern, and a couple of choruses where he channels Erroll Garner. Monk is subtly honored and reflected upon here, expressed better even than Frank Kimbrough in his comprehensive album, Monk's Dreams: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Sphere Monk (Sunnyside, 2018). More than most players, Block's advanced compositional skills are active even when he is "just improvising."

This album can be enjoyed even as comforting background music. But if you want to get its essence, do what great musicians do: "Shut up and listen!" There is more here than meets the ear.

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