| Jazz |
In the Heart of the Night: A Jazz Album That Breathes New York
For a straight-ahead jazz album to capture attention in an era awash with experimentation and digital detours, it must rise to a level of quiet brilliance, effortless, yes, but exceptional. Out Late, the latest offering from pianist Eric Scott Reed and his stellar quintet, does just that. Steeped in the DNA of New York City, this album is a portrait in sound of the metropolis after dark: urbane, intimate, and electric with life. It’s the sound of a city that never sleeps, channeled through musicians who know every alleyway of the idiom and every shortcut to emotional resonance.
“This music is nocturnal, it belongs to the clubs, to the streets just after midnight, to the pulse of the city,” Reed says. “Every city has its own late-night vibration. No disrespect to Paris, Vegas, Philly, or L.A., but being in New York… it’s incomparable.”
Out Late is, as Reed explains, a layered title. On one level, it’s a tribute to the life of working musicians and the city’s restless nightlife; on another, it’s deeply personal. “It’s also about me,” he confides. “About a revelation that came much later in life, the journey toward accepting myself fully, wholly, as I am. Who I am, who I love, why I play, and how all of that is connected.”
That raw honesty permeates every track. There’s no polish for polish’s sake here, each song was recorded in a single take, live in the room, no headphones, no overdubs, no filters. The quintet plays together, breathes together. The result is a kind of musical séance: passionate, flawed in all the right ways, and achingly human.
“We recorded this like the old cats did,” Reed explains. “What we captured was energy. Truth. Coleman Hawkins used to say, ‘If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not taking risks.’ That’s what we were after, risk and revelation.”
It doesn’t take a romantic to imagine the neon-lit corners where this kind of music was born, tracing its lineage back to smoky parlors and hidden clubs of the late 19th century. The album carries that spirit forward, not as pastiche, but as practice. These musicians have lived the life: years of collaboration, improvisation, and communion have crystallized into a language uniquely their own.
And so, yes, we are not merely listeners but witnesses. Close your eyes, and you can feel the breath of every horn line, the heartbeat in every cymbal splash. It is a living, breathing album, something that taps into the collective unconscious, a shared well of artistic memory. Beneath its apparent classicism lies a depth that demands attention. It’s an album that rewards patience, that opens slowly, generously, and then won’t let go.
In its elegance and emotional weight, Out Late stands shoulder to shoulder with the most profound contemporary jazz recordings, comparable, in scope and soul, to Branford Marsalis at his most inspired. It reminds us that at a certain altitude of musicality, all great spirits converge.
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, May 6th 2025
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Musicians :
Eric Scott Reed: piano
Nicholas Payton: trumpet
Eric Alexander: tenor saxophone
Peter Washington: bass
Joe Farnsworth: drums
Tracklist :
- Glow 3:43 (Reed)
- All’umfrs 6:32 (Reed)
- Shadoboxing 7:28 (Reed)
- They 4:12 (Reed)
- Out Late 4:46 (Reed)
- The Weirdos 6:20 (Reed)
- Delightful Daddy 6:14 (Reed)
Recorded December 17, 2024, at a “Daylight Session,” Smoke Jazz Club, New York City
Features original photography by Kevin Scanlon
Available on limited edition 180-gram LP, CD album (4-panel gatefold digipak) and in audiophile 48khz/ 24bit digital download format