| Jazz |
Every so often, an album appears that feels less like a collection of tracks and more like a subtle act of self-definition, an artist stepping forward to say, This is who I am, and this is what my music knows about the world. Kerry Politzer’s Alternate Route belongs firmly to that category. From the opening moments, what asserts itself most clearly is Politzer’s voice as a composer: lucid, daring, and unafraid of complexity. She has that rare ability, prized in jazz but not often achieved, to shape intricate musical architectures while keeping the door open to the uninitiated listener. The results feel both refined and welcoming, challenging yet free of artifice.
Surrounding her is a band that seems to breathe as a single organism. Saxophonist Jaleel Shaw, the first among equals here, brings a fierce lyricism that threads itself through Politzer’s compositions without ever overwhelming them. Each piece is sculpted with meticulous care: elegant voicings, subtle harmonic feints, arrangements that create just enough open space for improvisation to bloom. The presence of the Philadelphia triumvirate, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jaleel Shaw, and Alexander Claffy, adds a kind of alchemical glow. They play not merely as sidemen but as interpretive partners, sharing an instinctive rapport that allows them to move through the material with the ease and certainty of seasoned magicians.
Politzer, for her part, arrives at this project with a considerable artistic past. With nine albums already behind her, she has quietly but steadily become one of the most distinctive pianists and composers of her generation. Her phrasing carries something intimate, almost secretive, as if each line were shaped by memories of cities traveled through, stages briefly inhabited, and audiences encountered. It is hard not to imagine how her itinerant musical life, headlining the Montavilla Jazz Festival, appearing at the Gene Harris Jazz Festival, the Black Dolphin, the Jazz Forum, the Oregon Coast Jazz Party, Jazz in the Valley, Smalls, and the Sound Room, has deepened her palette. Those experiences seem to whisper throughout Alternate Route, an album structured with the precision and pacing of a live performance, equal parts narrative arc and spontaneous encounter.
Time, for Politzer, is always in short supply. Balancing a dual university teaching load, a growing body of recorded work, and life as a mother of two, she approaches each new project with a rare economy of focus. That she entered a New York studio with ten original compositions and a single day to record them, plus one beautifully chosen cover, would seem almost reckless in lesser hands. Yet the ensemble met the challenge with astonishing poise. To capture eleven tracks of such detail and musical depth in one session is, in today’s jazz landscape, nearly unthinkable. But here it is: clear, cohesive, and utterly alive.
That vitality is woven into every track. Each musician brings a distinct sensibility, yet the album unfolds with an almost narrative coherence. The pieces are powerful without brashness, tender without sentimentality. Politzer’s harmonic language, layered, elegant, subtly unpredictable, creates a foundation from which complex yet inviting melodies naturally emerge. The band’s improvisations are fierce, but not undisciplined; expressive, but never indulgent. At times, rhythmic gestures nod toward Latin traditions, yet the music remains anchored in a richly articulated jazz vocabulary that feels both modern and deeply informed by history.
Listening to Alternate Route is akin to settling into a seat in a small, dimly lit club where the air is thick with attention, the sense that something unrepeatable is unfolding. The album recreates that intimacy, that quiet emotional charge that makes live jazz feel essential. It reminds us why this music endures: because, at its best, it reconnects us to the cultural and intellectual currents that shape us, the impulses that push us to listen more deeply and think more freely.
And in this moment, when women are increasingly reshaping the landscape of jazz, often with works that rank among the most compelling of the era, Politzer’s contribution feels especially resonant. Alternate Route is not merely another entry in an already distinguished discography; it is a clear affirmation of artistic direction, a work that manages to be both innovative and deeply beautiful.
In an era when jazz continues to reinvent itself through new voices and evolving narratives, Politzer’s album stands as a reminder that innovation need not break with tradition. Sometimes, it sharpens it, refining it into something luminous, confident, and entirely its own.
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 1st 2025
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Musicians :
Kerry Politzer – piano
Kurt Rosenwinkel – guitar
Jaleel Shaw – alto saxophone/ soprano saxophone
Alexander Claffy – bass
George Colligan – drums
Track Listing :
Before It’s Too Late
Here We Go Again
Watercolor
Storm Warning
Alternate Route
Stopped at a Green Light
The Sunrise Wants to Break Through
Intensity
Change of Plans
No Present Like the Time
Tara
Album credits:
Recorded at EastSide Sound, NYC
Engineered, Mixed & Mastered by Marc Urselli / EastSide Sound
Producer – Kerry Politzer
Executive Producer – Michael Janisch
Photography by Rachel Hadiashar / Zing Studio
Album Original Artwork and Graphic Design for CD & LP by Brian Hanlon OG Media