His fertile imagination seems to explode with ideas that he
can barely fit into the space provided. ~ Nils Jacobson -
allaboutjazz.com
Steve Lantner's radiantly novel approach contains the stuff that
provides the earmarks for a fruitful career....No doubt, Lantner
is an inventor who pushes his craft to the limits....Essentially,
they investigate the free zone but perform with the refinement
and elegance of a seasoned and well-disciplined jazz piano
trio. This wonderful outing should not slip into a state of
secrecy! Compulsory listening! ~ Glenn Astarita - All About
Jazz, 7/18/02
Blue Yonder is a tour de force for Boston-area pianist Steve
Lantner. His range is vast, covering most strains of jazz-based
improvisation as well as an unusually broad knowledge of
techniques lifted from European-derived art music. He swings
like a madman and abstracts like a mutha. Throw in a huge
imagination, and you've got a tremendous piano player. ~
Chris Kelsey - JazzTimes
The trio has a rounded presence that's unbelievable....That the
pieces are improvised at times seems unbelievable - the band
stays as in-step as any recent piano trio session....If you're a
piano fan, this will be a heavy-rotation treat. ~ Andrew Bartlett,
Coda Magazine
The trio is strong. Their achievement of groove is outstanding.
Listening to this recording is like fast-forwarding piano trio
expectations. The fast-forwarding brings us into present
time....Lantner clarifies an upper level of piano improvisation. ~
Lyn Horton - jazzreview.com
This is one piano trio that isn't afraid of dealing with the
historical hand that's been dealt them. ~ Bill Meyer - Signal to
Noise
On Saying So, free jazz pianist Steve Lantner gives new
meaning to the word lyrical. He extends beyond gentle
melodies to emphasize communication, and thus tell a story.
Lantner builds statements, exclamations, and questions--and
that feeling comes from his phrasing. When he's out front,
Lantner has a particularly articulate way of putting things
together. It's not the pointed lightning stabs of Cecil Taylor or
the dark, angular thrusts of Matthew Shipp. Instead, Lantner
relies on understatement and a gentle touch to make the
music work. And it works. Consistently throughout each of
these four extended pieces (7 to 30 minutes long), he allows
ideas to unfurl at a deliberate pace, unrushed and crystalline
in their clarity. And he's not averse to swinging, either.
~ Nils Jacobson - All About, Jazz 8/7/02
The pianist and his trio play in a wildly creative albeit
gentlemanly free-improvisational style that draws from an
unusual source (for free players, at least). This trio does not
recall the egalitarian piano trios of, say, Bill Evans, or the
thick abstraction of the post-Cecil Taylor school so much as it
skips right back to the mainstream bebop piano trio sound of
the '50s, though subsequently refracted through an abstract,
thoroughly modern idiom....the real star of this show is
Lantner.
~ Aaron Steinberg - Jazz Times, May 2003
Lantner's playing, while completely free, shows a deep, nearly
cellular, mastery of form and balance....His tone is round and
warm and his playing, even at its most forceful, is unerringly
elegant....Lantner is a great talent, and Saying So is an
essential document of his rising star.
~ James Beaudreau - Pop Matters December 2002
Never harsh, and quite accessible, the album expresses Free
Jazz the way it's meant to be.
~ Jim Santella - Cadence, December 2002
Lantner is an imposing presence.
~ Christian Carey - Copper Press
This is a disc that one hesitates to label subtle, for they do
not play particularly softly, nor are the lines difficult to detect.
It's only that this is the antithesis of a blowing sessions. All
lines clear, spare, powerful and immediate, yet there's more
revealed each listening.
~ Steven H. Koenig - All About Jazz, Best of 2001
This improvising troupe conjures up meticulously crafted or
perhaps spellbinding interludes, enhanced by the musicians'
distinctive and altogether stylistic approaches to their
crafts....Three pioneers at the top of their game!
~ Glenn Astarita - All About Jazz
It's a very fine document of a fairly naked, no-safety-net
working process that finds fresh and honest accommodations.
~ John Kennedy, Opprobrium
The music ripples and bubbles....This jazz is cool and
undemonstrative, yet the freedoms it opens up are as dizzying
as any broached by the bluster school.
~ The Wire
Fascinating improvisation and lots of depth by two musicians
who obviously share the same ambitions. The duo perform as
if they were truly Reaching for something which perhaps was
previously unattainable. Imagery, poise and articulate
renderings come to light as if these pieces were chronicles or
events as told by two men speaking from within. Wondrous
improvisation!
This one is aptly named. Steven Lantner and Mat Maneri are
indeed reaching: for new combinations, new sounds, new
potentialities to realize. This is extraor-dinarily active music,
lurching every which way, jumping, skating, flying, and
swooping down into a brood... Dark, low key, searching,
furious, exalted, exalting improvised music. ~ Robert Spencer,
allaboutjazz.com/December 1999
Their fine inscriptions of line and point are decisively made,
but an attractive fragility is created through their adventurous
departures from intervallic norms. That this austere and
sophisticated improvisation takes microtonality as its means
rather than its end makes all the difference. ~ Julian Cowley,
The Wire, Issue 190/191 It's [an] album to be treasured.
There's no sell-out or move to the mainstream here, but there
is an exploration of an area of improvised music which has
previously been sidelined. As more young players like Lantner
come to international atten-tion it will be interesting to see
how this strand of free improvisation develops. ~ Richard
Cochrane, Musings
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