LEMEL MUSIC PRODUCTIONS

Noah Baerman: U-Turn

LEMD-0201
Recorded and Released in 2002
Lemel Music Productions is proud to announce the release of U-Turn, the solo debut of jazz pianist Noah Baerman. On this album, Noah is joined by his regular trio for a set of jazz that swings and lilts, screams and whispers, shows abandon and restraint, in all the right places. "It may seem a little trite," says Baerman, "but I really try to make people feel uplifted when I play." In keeping with Baerman's feel-good vibe, Lemel Music Productions is happy to point out that U-Turn's CD case is made of entirely recycled materials. Rest assured, though, that the music is by no means recycled.
When Noah left New Jersey for Connecticut in 1998, his career as a jazz pianist was in full bloom. While he never stopped playing or left the scene, his visibility lessened somewhat over the next three years. By this point, his careers as an author and educator were flourishing, and he was busy serving as musical director for the soul group Mr. B's Boogie Band. Meanwhile, he was going through a difficult period in his lifelong struggle with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a connective tissue disorder that affects the body's joints with chronic pain and frequent injury. As such, he resigned himself to putting jazz piano performance on the back burner. That is until March of 2001, when he was recruited to take up residency with a trio at the Connecticut restaurant It's Only Natural (ION). He had recently met bassist Tyler Goodwin and drummer George Mastrogiannis and was impressed by their enthusiasm and musicality, so he asked them to join him. What began as a couple of gigs evolved into an ongoing relationship that moved Noah's playing squarely into the forefront of his activities. With their trip to the recording studio, Noah's "U-Turn" was complete.
Recorded one year after the Trio's first gig, U-Turn documents the evolution of their sound. "When we began playing together," Noah recalls, "George was coming primarily from the straight-ahead tradition, while Tyler's sound was more modern. It's been great to hear them both stretch to find the common ground." The end result is a tight-knit unit that is creatively restless, yet always lyrical, in-the-pocket and full of blues feeling. Mastrogiannis contributes the album's two most hard-bop-oriented tunes, and Goodwin contributes the two most modern compositions. The CD also features tunes from the songbooks of New York guitarist Amanda Monaco and former PRF members Jason Berg and Sunny Jain. The remaining four tunes are Baerman's. "Cat in the Rain," a slow, mournful blues, was written for the session, while Noah dipped into his archives for the funky "Nice Try, Big Guy" (1992), the expansive "There Will Never Be Another U-Turn" (1994) and the Ahmad Jamal influenced "Eulogy for Stinky" (1995). Throughout the album, the Trio deftly negotiates one of the major challenges of jazz in the 21st century, respecting the tradition while offering something new.
The instrumentation on the album reflects the setup at ION: drums, acoustic bass and Fender Rhodes electric piano. While many people associate the sound of the Rhodes with jazz-pop "crossover" music, Baerman is quick to point out that the instrument's history is more varied than that. "People forget that major jazz pianists like Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and Cedar Walton have used electric piano on straight-ahead records." Be it acoustic or electric piano, this album shows that Noah Baerman's U-Turn has put him back on a straight-ahead path. Full speed ahead!

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