It’s special this sax and piano duo album of Caleb Wheeler Curtis and Jason Moran’s recorded in a Brooklyn studio last year.
There are a few unusual aspects to it, most notably the use by saxist/trumpeter Curtis of the stritch that’s like an E flat alto sax without a bell, an instrument hardly used today and most synonymous with Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
There’s quite a raw intensity to what the pair do and this easily holds your attention.
If it were a theatre play it wouldn’t be a melodrama, more a serious drama full of strong tableaux and dramatic pauses.
Issuing label Imani is run by Orrin Evans – who was briefly in The Bad Plus following Ethan Iverson’s departure – and one of the pieces here is one of this tremendous player’s own, a tune called ‘Big Small’ that was on Evans’ 2012 trio album Flip the Script on which the pianist was joined by bassist Ben Wolfe and drummer Donald Edwards.
Flipping the script in an entirely spikier way is what Incantation is all about and the absence of a drummer is one way of doing just that, as is the heightened atmosphere the two generate all through the album. Populated by an interesting spread of material interspersed by Curtis originals a track like ‘Miss Nancy’ by Arthur Blythe (1940-2017) rubs along well – it goes back to 1980 and an album called Illusion on which Blythe was joined by pianist John Hicks, the restless bass playing of Fred Hopkins and drummer Steve McCall. The Leaders also later recorded the tune.
Curtis, who is in his early forties, hails from Ann Arbor in Michigan. He is also a founding member of the trio Ember with bassist Noah Garabedian and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza and was a co-founder of the group Walking Distance, whose album Freebird (2018), featuring the Houstonian Moran, was named among The New York Times‘ top 20 jazz records of that year.
There’s also a Garabedian tune on Incantation wittily entitled ‘Tiramisu for Two’ that’s far more than simply the dessert course. Check out a review of the bassist’s Quartets and Solos above for more in that vein.
