| Jazz |
Some album titles function as little more than labels. Others act as keys, unlocking the listener’s experience almost immediately. This one belongs firmly in the latter category. From the opening moments, the music aligns so closely with its name that it feels less like a concept than a lived reality, sound shaped by memory, movement, and accumulated experience. That coherence is hardly accidental. The artist behind this project is among the most versatile musicians on the New York scene, a trumpeter whose career has unfolded across an unusually broad musical landscape.
Equally comfortable in jazz, whether in big band settings or intimate small ensembles, as he is in R&B and pop, Latin music, symphonic orchestras, and Broadway pit bands, he has built a reputation as a first-call musician capable of adapting to almost any stylistic environment. That adaptability profoundly informs this album. As the music unfolds, it invites not only attentive listening but also a physical, almost cinematic response. One can easily imagine movement accompanying these pieces, a sense reinforced by the album’s cover art, which evokes the abstract elegance of contemporary dance. A fleeting comparison might arise with choreographers such as Carolyn Carlson, though the parallel ends quickly: musically, this album inhabits a far more jazz-centered universe.
At heart, the project is rooted in modern jazz, drawing from post-bop language while embracing the openness of contemporary orchestral jazz and fusion. Yet it carries a pronounced balletic sensibility, oscillating between classical structure and contemporary fluidity. The album unfolds across thirteen distinct tableaux, each functioning like a vignette, urban, personal, and quietly narrative. These pieces feel like fragments of lived experience: encounters, places, conversations, and, above all, musical relationships. The many exceptional musicians the trumpeter has collaborated with over the years leave their imprint here, not through imitation but through absorption. As a result, the album resists easy categorization; its stylistic identity emerges precisely from the density of its influences.
What anchors this abundance is the artist’s complete command of composition and arrangement. This is not a record that reveals itself fully on first listen. Latin rhythmic impulses surface early, but they quickly give way to a more complex interplay of ideas: shifting meters, layered harmonies, and carefully sculpted ensemble passages. Color and atmosphere play a central narrative role, carrying the listener across geographies and traditions without ever feeling forced. Moments of jazz fusion appear with particular elegance, not as nostalgic gestures but as integral elements of a broader, contemporary sound world. Collectively, these compositions articulate a musical identity that feels spatial and multidimensional, as if the artist were composing not just in time, but in depth.
The album’s greatest strength lies in this richness and stylistic plurality. Fully appreciating it benefits from some familiarity with jazz vocabulary, classical forms, and global musical traditions. Each piece contains traces of all three, sometimes even veering unexpectedly toward reggae-inflected grooves filtered through a jazz lens. These border crossings are neither gimmicky nor self-conscious. Instead, they feel organic, even inevitable, reflecting a musician shaped by decades of stylistic immersion. In doing so, the album taps into a shared, transcultural musical memory, one that allows listeners from different backgrounds to recognize something familiar, even as they are led somewhere new.
There is ample reward here for a wide range of listeners: compelling rhythmic frameworks, meticulous writing, expressive and finely paced instrumental solos, and an undercurrent of nostalgia that remains reflective rather than melancholic. The music opens doors to multiple sonic worlds while maintaining a clear narrative through-line. Expansive without excess, ambitious without losing intimacy, this album stands as a mature statement, one that not only reflects the breadth of its creator’s career, but also asserts his place within the evolving landscape
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, December 28th 2025
Follow PARIS-MOVE on X
::::::::::::::::::::::::
Musicians :
Eddie Allen and PUSH:
Eddie Allen – trumpet
Jonathan Beshay – tenor sax
Misha Tsiganov – keyboards
Tyler Bullock II – piano
Kenny Davis – acoustic bass
EJ Strickland – drums
Special Guest:
Steve Turre – trombone
Track Listing :
1 Rhythm People 7:31
2 Between the Darkness and the Dawn 6:06
3 Maurice’s Interlude 1:20
4 Maurice 6:13
5 Mood Indigo 4:09
6 Daybreak 4:19
7 Worth Saying 6:05
8 The Journey 7:03
9 Our Day Will Come 7:22
10 Psalms 150 1:38
11 7 Days 5:27
12 Eve’s Deception 7:38
13 Eve’s Deception (Shout Reprise) 0:45
All music comp. & arr. by Eddie Allen (Edjalen Music Publishing Co., BMI) except:
“Mood Indigo” by Duke Ellington (EMI Mills Music, Inc. & Sony/ATV Harmony), arr. Allen
“Our Day Will Come” by Hilliard & Garson (Better Half Music & Universal Music Corp.), arr. Allen
“Maurice’s Interlude” by Misha Tsiganov (Tsiganov Music, BMI)
Produced by Eddie Allen
Recorded by David Amlen at Sound On Sound Studios, Montclair, NJ, November 6 & 7, 2023
Mixed & mastered by David Kowalski at Teaneck Sound, Teaneck, NJ
Band photos by Nick Carter
Cover design & layout by John Bishop