SAMUEL BLASER

Reviews

Froggydelight, Jérôme Gillet (le noise), December 2024 (FR)
Jazzmagazine “CHOC”, Frank Bergerot, December 2024 (FR)
La gazette bleue, Dom Imonk, November 2024 (FR)
CitizenJazz, Mario Borroni, November 2024 (FR)
Les dernières nouvelles du jazz, Xavier Prévost, October 2024 (FR)
Musicologie, Alain Lambert, November 2024 (FR)

Inventions: A Suite of Improvisations

In 2023 Russ Lossing released Alternate Side Parking Music, a CD by his band King Vulture. Its tense rhythms, acid-toned Wurlitzer and Rhodes electric pianos, and titular acknowledgement of the travails of car ownership all betray the influence of living and creating in an urban environment. Even before the record was out, Lossing put the city in his rearview mirror. He now lives in a house on three acres out in the country near the Delaware Water Gap. With no neighbors close by, he can play through the night if he likes, and he never has to forsake the piano to park his car. 

Just as Alternate Side Parking Music reflects the circumstances of city living, Inventions: A Suite of Improvisations can be understood in light of the setting in which it was made. Lossing recorded it on his own piano, in his living room, at night. He took his time, selecting the suite’s six parts from pieces recorded between May 2023 and January 2024. But it does not seek to express the view from his room. The setting is a not a resource to be mined, but a precondition which enables Lossing to access the mindset necessary to spontaneously conceive and articulate this complex but logically organized music.

Lossing is no stranger to solo improvisation. While he has led his own bands for decades, and is a versatile, engaged facilitator of other people’s music, solitary exploration within a determined framework is at the core of his creative practice. “I began classical piano studies in 1965 at the age of five.  When I was ten years old, I became fully aware of the concept of improvisation. At that point I began my daily practicing by improvising before I started working on my lesson material. At first, I would improvise for 10-15 minutes non-stop, and then gradually increase the time to one hour over the next couple of years.  Over the decades I developed my own vocabulary, concepts and strategies.”

Inventions is founded upon a lifelong study and practice of music, full stop. “My influences are very broad.  All western classical music, all Jazz, Folkloric music of the world, Indian classical music, Electronic and Musique Concrete from history, Gamelan and the list goes on.” It is also born of an enduring, intimate relationship with the piano. Lossing proceeds with absolute confidence, both in the process that gives rise to each piece’s thematic development and the technique that articulates it. He throws down in the first twenty seconds of the first invention, beginning with a theme, exposing one of its implications, and then restating it in light of what he’s found. What he plays in that time span is information-rich, providing raw material for intricate statements to come and establishing the pace at which he will take them. It also issues a prescription for lucidity, which Lossing adheres to throughout the suite. Follow “Invention II” as it patiently descends a staircase of pitch and navigates a hallway of options, patient but never hesitant. That patience manifests differently on “Invention III;” the phrasing starts quick and gets quicker, but pauses permit the listener to sit with them, breath, and then continue. On each of these pieces, and the three that follow, he imagines and elaborates upon a sonic structure, taking the listener into a psychic and sensate space as real as any avenue or acreage.