Moon Inhabitants by Russ Lossing

24 bit / 48k

There is an oddly satisfying feeling while floating. The sensation of being untethered from gravity has fascinated people for ages. In a musical sense, performing without the weight of tempo or rhythmic structure has been explored by many improvisers, but finding a place not quite tethered to tempo or rhythmic structure remains a difficult challenge for most.

Pianist/composer Russ Lossing has exercised a balance between structure and freedom in his music for decades. His trio with bassist Masa Kamaguchi and drummer Billy Mintz has found that balance after 25 years of performing together. Their latest release, Moon Inhabitants, is a fantastic example of their ease in expression in less than one hundred percent gravity.

Lossing’s trio has had a long career documenting their explorations with what Lossing calls “almost strict time,” an elastic feeling of playing around the beat. Their model is the unique trio of Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, and Paul Motian, an incredible assembly of musicians who balanced form and freedom. Like the Bley Trio, Lossing’s group features musicians who are equally adept at playing traditional jazz forms along with free improvisation.

The trio’s four recordings have shown their evolution. Two recordings for Hat Hut, Ways and Oracle, highlight their ability in free improvisation and performing original material, respectively. Their 2019 Sunnyside release, Motian Music, found them honoring one of their reflexive time heroes, Paul Motian, with interpretations of Motian’s idiosyncratic compositions that float around time and in their own space.

For Moon Inhabitants, Lossing decided to select a program of originals balanced with compositions by a variety of other composers, jazz and classical. The mixture highlights the spectrum of what the powers that the trio commands.

The recording begins with the title track, Ornette Coleman’s “Moon Inhabitants,” an up-tempo swing with an open pulse powered by Mintz’s hi-hat cymbal that flows from Coleman’s melody to free improvisation. Lossing turns to the gorgeous rubato melody of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of The Little Swans” as a quietly measured departure point for the trio’s improvisations. Coleman’s “Jayne” provides a perfect example of the “almost strict time,” as it dances and bends to the trio’s push and pull.

The Harold Arlen “Last Night When We Were Young” is performed as a hazy ballad, the blue hues of the piece a lovely impressionistic rendition of the classic standard. Kamaguchi’s dark bass tone introduce Sonny Rollins’ “Pent-Up House.” Lossing’s piano jumps in with a fascinatingly disjunct but playful swing.

Lossing’s “Being” rings with emotion over the shimmer of Mintz’s ride cymbal, while the pianist’s “Tulip” is a stridently performed piece with an up-beat pulse and a deep swinging pocket. The recording concludes with Lossing’s “Verse,” a longer piece with three movements that develops along a long unison line that provides plenty of drama through its development.

Just as being weightless provides a unique feeling, Russ Lossing and his trio’s variable pulse provides a sensation of not quite being tied down. Their Moon Inhabitants shows how their work together has given the trio the ability to soar or dig into the beat, but they can also lightly dance and bound around it.