Uri Caine - Calibrated Thickness (2016)

Uri Caine is best known as a genre-warping, restlessly inventive pianist and sonic thinker whose every project is as predictably unpredictable as the last. But the piano trio remains a touchstone for Caine, who returns regularly to apply his expansive imagination to that core jazz format. On his latest album, Calibrated Thickness, Caine debuts a new trio with two longtime collaborators: drummer Clarence Penn and bassist Mark Helias. "There's a lot of freedom in the piano trio," Caine says. "It's very open and loose. We keep the structure together, but within that I like the freedom it offers." Though the title is a phrase that Caine stumbled across in a technical manual, Calibrated Thickness vividly captures the sense of controlled dynamics and calculated density that this trio so ably masters. The album's 15 songs are in a sense a distillation of the musical identity that Caine, Penn and Helias have forged over the last few years as a trio (in addition to many more in different contexts). Live, Caine's memorable compositions are landmarks that the trio happens upon in the course of lengthy improvisations, fluidly morphing from one tune to the next at a moment's whim.

Tracklist:

01. - Manahatta
02. - Woke up This Morning
03. - Icicles
04. - Submission
05. - Golem
06. - Bleeding Heart
07. - Night Wrestler
08. - Climb to the Top
09. - Hidden Glances
10. - Scatterbrain Suite
11. - He Said She
12. - Sticks and Stones [3:59
13. - Time in Between
14. - Shadow of a Doubt
15. - Downward Spiral

Personal:

Bass - Mark Helias
Design [Cover Design] - Jan Caine
Drums - Clarence Penn
Engineer [Assistant Engineer] - Grant Valentine
Engineer [Audio Engineer] - Chris Allen (4)
Guest [Special Guest], Cornet - Kirk Knuffke
Music By - Uri Caine
Photography By - Bill Douthart
Piano - Uri Caine
Technician [Piano Tuning] - Ed Wedberg