Billy Childs: Triumvirate
Phones were not smart and music was not streamed last time Billy Childs put out a trio record. After plucking up his courage for 26 years, the pianist is taking another tilt at this tricky instrumentation. All eight tracks on Triumvirate are compositions that have featured on previous albums from his 40-year career. Childs utilises those four decades of experience to reimagine each tune. That long career has celebrated six Grammy wins, including the prestigious Best Jazz Instrumental Album award for The Winds Of Change (Mack Avenue Records, 2024). But although Childs has published more than a dozen records as a leader, this deftly delivered release marks his first visit to the studio with bassist Matt Penman and drummer Ari Hoenig.
The group makes a flying start on One Fleeting Instant, which appeared on Childs’ debut album Take For Example This (Windham Hill Jazz, 1988). It’s a jumpy number with pockets of waltzing tucked in among the stop-start swing rhythm. Hoenig takes the last solo, his sticks zipping across the kit to create a fluttery and full-bodied sound. There’s a similarly charged atmosphere on Lazy Afternoon. This time, extended passages of slowed-down balladeering get wedged in among the energised post-bop playing. Childs has the capacity to launch swirling monsoons of tonal material, but he exercises that power judiciously. More often, his fast-and-heavy runs lead to quiet moments of restraint and reflection. Carefree has a different mood. It’s a behind-the-beat and swaggering piece where brushes are enough for Hoenig and a walking bassline gets the job done for Penman. The bassist takes a motif-driven turn in the limelight here, with his gelatinous strings clucking off the fretboard.
Digital tech has turned the music industry upside-down in the last quarter of a century, but Billy Childs has successfully guarded his place at jazz’s top table throughout. This return to the precarious three-player format suggests he’s still up for a challenge. Triumvirate showcases Childs’ skill as a player and arranger, while also spotlighting his sensitive and listener-centric approach to music.
Discography
One Fleeting Instant; Carefree; Like Father Like Son; Heroes; Whisper Not; Ask Me Now; Lazy Afternoon; Flamenco Sketches (56.00)
Childs (p); Matt Penman (b); Ari Hoenig (d). New York City, USA, May 2025.
Mack Avenue Records MAC1222
Benjie Porecki: Faster Than We Know
Sunlight glows through freshly opened petals and bunnies bounce around the meadows. It’s time to loosen up, perhaps even to boogie on down. Benjie Porecki’s new album offers a powerful catalyst to help you achieve those goals. This is happy music with cheeky chops, fun, frolics and funky bits.
Porecki’s eighth record as a band leader features a trio with Cory Baker on bass and Mark Prince on drums. To spice up eight originals and one borrowed composition, Porecki plays multiple keyboard instruments including piano, organ, electric piano and clavinet. That gives the music an engaging variety of voices and layers that is sometimes absent from trio albums. A passage of acid-jazz swirling announces the first track, Chrysalis. Like many tunes on this album, it’s constructed around a simple shape that evolves from bar to bar. Porecki plays piano on this song but switches to organ and electric piano on the second number, Right Direction. A funkier feeling emerges, fuelled by Baker’s go-getting bass contributions.
The bluesy strut Moving On has lower velocity but communicates a pleasingly conspiratorial attitude. Porecki is a patient and persuasive improviser. On this track, he adds whirling organ chords beneath his piano playing. Other tracks reverse those roles. Some include both combinations. Gospel voicings occur often but are most pronounced on It’s Gonna Be Alright. It’s a careful and cheerful composition, where triplet drumming patterns add carousel-like momentum. Again, Porecki fleshes out the mix by rotating his various instruments.
According to its accompanying press info, this album’s title tune addresses the speed at which our blesséd days and sacred nights zoom past. In that spirit, it’s good advice to get your kicks while you can. Faster Than We Know is an upbeat and up-to-mischief release by an engaging musician. Give it a try. Loosen up. Perhaps even do some boogieing. Life really is too short.
Discography
Chrysalis; Right Direction; Moving On; Headed Home; Make It Bring You Up; Superstar; Fresh Start; It’s Gonna Be Alright; Faster Than We Know (45.48)
Porecki (p, org, elp, kyb, clav); Cory Baker (b); Mark Prince (d). Takoma Park, USA, 2026.
Funklove Productions
Alister Spence: Always Ever
Most people use the black and white keys to play a piano. Alister Spence has more imagination than that. The Australian employs every nook and cranny of his instrument on these 16 solo-improvised experiments, recorded in real time without editing. But he also tickles the ivories in the conventional manner, creating an intriguing blend of abstract sounds and more traditional musicality. That mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar provides a neat reflection of Spence’s 30-year career, which has included composing for film and theatre, as well as lecturing at the University of New South Wales. Improvisation is at the heart of much of his work and Always Ever is his second entirely unscripted release. It’s an album with a fidgety, anxious character.
Preparations and modifications extend Spence’s tonal palette. There’s metallic gonging and bonging on the opening track, Mystic, which starts out sparse but gets crowded towards its conclusion. Tonal Dance leverages similar percussive chiming until Spence adds stifled low-note pulses. Scratchy noises deepen the album’s atmosphere of nervy mistrust. Distant Cousins, for example, begins with come-to-life cutlery wriggling across the piano strings. Spence plays a Monkish passage near the halfway point. There’s a comparable structure to the final track, Scrape Rattle Strike. Drones provide a stable backdrop for a handful of pieces. On Searchlight, there’s a buzzing quality to the sound that suggests a vibrating machine. There’s a softer and gentler edge to the drone on Begin From The Middle, where long tones seem shy as they sneak in and out of earshot.
Alister Spence lets his imagination run free on this release and it leads him to some compelling sonic landscapes. The shifting textures and sensations on Always Ever create an absorbing listening experience that reaches for new noises while keeping familiar sounds close at hand. It’s a restless and testing record with some enjoyable twists, turns and trials.
Discography
Mystic; Determination; Play Of Light; Distant Cousins; Afternoon At Rancom Street; Begin From The Middle; Rain Phase; Semi-Formal Garden; Tonal Dance; Halo; Sparkler; Searchlight; Top Spinner; Random Access Counterpoint; Talking Slowly With Lorikeets; Scrape Rattle Strike (65.36)
Spence (p). Sydney, Australia, September 2025.
Alister Spence Music ASM018
