Russ Lossing
Jazz Pianist - Composer
all about jazz, new york november 2006
Russ Lossing - solo piano
All Things Arise
Hatology
By Donald Elfman
Improvisation in its most open and free form expression - though tempered with a compositional sensibility - is at the center of Russ Lossing’s provocative new album All Things Arise. (Lange’s comments on the piano come from the liner notes.) It’s an album that, as the notes say, seems to have two sides - one of free improvisations and one of the pianist’s bold takes on some more familiar music. The four free pieces on “side 1” are linked in terms of space, development, intervals, etc. and Lossing gives these explorations a true sense of form. He bridges the worlds of jazz and new music, the pieces feeling as if they arise out of the primal silence of the universe.
And then we come to tunes that the jazzers know - from Sonny Rollins’ “Pent-Up House” and Ellington’s “Azure” to Ornette’s “Kathelin Grey” and Kurt Weill’s “Alabama Song” - but even these ‘standards’ feel as if they’re emerging newly formed from a magnificent world of thought and impulse. What’s also bridged here are modes of expression - private and intimate to outgoing and audience- involving. Especially instructive are the two takes of the Ellington tune - the first is simple and almost still and the second takes on more of a pulse but still manages to feel reflective and almost motionless.
