Jacky Terrason
(This did not constitute Terrasson’s Chicago debut, by the way. Several years ago he left the Berklee School of Music in Boston–where he had come to study from his hometown Paris–and moved here on the advice of Chicago bassist Dennis Carroll, whom he’d known at Berklee. Then in his mid-20s, the pianist spent the next ten months or so playing with Carroll at Blondie’s–an unlikely jazz cellar on Rush Street–and, in his own words, getting to learn music “three times faster than in class, since I was on the spot onstage all the time.”)
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To merely say that Terrasson’s reputation preceded him would be to greatly understate the case. Ever since he walked away with the blue ribbon at the 1993 piano competition sponsored by the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, Terrasson has occupied an increasingly bright center-stage spot. Critics on both coasts have raved about his sparkling work with Betty Carter; some have also heaped garlands (inexplicably) on a poorly produced quartet date under his own name for the French label Jazz aux Remparts. He reputedly received an enormous bonus for signing a contract with Blue Note Records, which capped a bidding war among several labels. And at the end of 1994 the New York Times labeled Terrasson one of 30 artists under 30 who were most likely to change the arts as the century plays itself out.
Parker’s imagination also extends to the beat itself–more specifically, to the subdivisions of the beat that give jazz its swing and vitality. Parker (who has his own hot debut album on the Epicure label) builds his art on suggestion. He juggles his limited sonic resources to suggest a larger instrument; and like a gifted sleight-of-hand artist he uses misdirection of accents and emphases to suggest rhythms (and even counterrhythms) that aren’t really there.
In some ways, Terrasson’s trio might seem a perfect fin de siecle jazz unit. With high concept and glittering recapitulation, it reaffirms some of the most advanced and stirring musical ideas of the last half century, specifically the heightened sensibilities of great piano trios from Jamal through Jarrett. But in skimming the lighter, more obvious techniques off the top, Terrasson has thus far missed the depth and context, the real soul of the music his trio draws upon. I’ve overstated the case a little; I don’t mean to disparage Terrasson and company as much as locate the message in their music. But so far the message seems to be the medium. This is piano-trio music about piano-trio music, and I hope that these guys will eventually take us further than that.
