Russ Lossing
Jazz Pianist - Composer
CD Reviews: Russ Lossing “All Things Arise” CD-2006 hatOLOGY Records
Posted :Friday, June 09, 2006
By Glenn Astarita
New York City-based pianist Ross Lossing’s previous trio effort for this Swiss record label, features flotation-like attributes, partly due to drummer Paul Motian’s distinctive strokes and accents. Nonetheless, Lossing is a thinking man’s pianist. With this newly issued solo effort, the artist segments tracks into an improvised suite, followed by renditions of jazz standards and one original work.
On the initial four pieces titled “Suite: All Things Arise,” Lossing presents a diversified series of motifs, built on contrapuntal chord clusters, fractured stride piano passages and trance-like themes. His multidimensional thought processes are put to good use here, to coincide with minimalist avant-classical segments and muscular block chord based phrasings. Lossing is an inventor of off-kilter stylizations, often stitched together into loosely realized conceptions that sustain gobs of interest. Then on the more structured works such as Sonny Rollins’ “Pent-Up House,” Lossing executes free-bop statements with lucidly enacted panoramas. And with his composition “Verse,” he commingles swarming clusters with contrasting elements of beauty and discontent. No doubt, Lossing presents an engaging arc of ideas throughout these investigative endeavors. There’s a lot going on under the hood, so to speak.
Russ Lossing: piano