Angelica Sanchez - Life Between (Clean Feed, 2008)

Pianist Angelica Sanchez's debut album Mirror Me was the first album I reviewed on this blog over five years ago (!) so I was excited to see that she had a new album out. On this disc she is joined by Tony Malaby on tenor saxophone, Drew Gress on bass, Marc Ducret on guitar, and Tom Rainey on drums. It's interesting to hear Ms. Snachez add electric piano to her repertoire on this album, because the addition of that sound and the guitar work of Drucet give the music some interesting added texture and context. "SF 4" builds slowly, opening gradually to a surprisingly powerful performance led by stinging guitar and powerful drumming. "514" uses the fender rhodes piano to good effect, along with some strong, dark and knotty saxophone and an elastic sounding guitar solo that stretches and compresses the music. The ominous "Black Helicopters" opens slowly with acoustic piano and probing saxophone, before moving into an urgent section with wildly strummed guitar, strong free blowing tenor saxopnone and percussive piano. The group gets a patient, thoughtful and wide open sound throughout this disc. The musicians show admirable restraint, performing music that slowly gives up its secrets over repeated listenings.
Life Between - amazon.com

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