Step Tempest reviews EARPRINT

Richard Kamins kindly featured Earprint over at Step Tempest. We'll be playing a free CD release concert at Yale this Friday, November 11, 2016 at 8 PM. The Yale Undergraduate Jazz Collective has been curating a fine line-up for its Jazz at The Underbrook series, which this season has included friends like Gabriel Zucker and Zack O'Farrill.

​Read more about the event here, and we hope to see some you in New Haven. The full Step Tempest review is below:

---

Young People Singing & Playingby Richard Kamins (originally published at Step Tempest, November 8, 2016)

​There seems to be a surplus of young bands playing fascinating music these days and nights. They have CDs and they're playing gigs in the area.  This Friday (11/11), Earprint, a quartet that came together several years while attending the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, will play a concert for the Jazz at The Underbrook series sponsored by Saybrook College at Yale. The band (pictured above) has an energetic debut album issued several weeks ago on Endectomorph Music.  The self-titled recording features Kevin Sun (tenor sax, clarinet), Tree Palmedo (trumpet, ocean drum), Simón Willson (bass), and Dor Herskovits (drums).  It's the second debut recording this year for Sun and Willson as they are part of another quartet that records for Endectomorph, Great on Paper(review is here).  The earlier album features a pianist - here, the exciting work of Palmedo gives this album great depth and many colors. When he combines his sound with that of the tenor sax, whether in counterpoint (as on "Clock Gears") or in harmony ("School Days" is a good example).  And he fly over the solid rhythms of the bass and drums which he does with great panache on "Colonel.". His brash mute work on "Boardroom" makes an interesting partner to Sun's mellower clarinet.

The work of Willson and Herskovits sparkles on the majority of the 11 tracks.  The bassist creates excellent foundations and is also quite a melodic player.  Listen to him dance on ""School Days" and on the playful "Boardroom".  The Israeli-born drummer plays with great power as well as finesse. He helps create the mysterious air in "The Holy Quiet", Sun's musical reaction to the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.  The drummer contributed three songs, including the powerful closing track, "Six Nine", a piece that takes a number of twists and turns yet never loses its way.

Sun, who wrote six of the songs, plays with grace and power often doing both on the same tune. The singing opening line of Palmedo's "The Golden Girder Strikes Again" gives way to a powerful beat and a funky melody.The trumpeter trades lines with the tenor with both pushing the piece forward alongside the rhythm section.  The airy tenor sax, somewhat like Paul Desmond, on "Malingerer", is an excellent companion to the explorations of the rhythm section.
​
What really stands out on this album is how melodic the band can be. These songs are not "jams" but pieces that were composed with the participants in mind, playing to each one's strengths while creating a group identity.  Earprint has vitality, a youthfulness that is refreshing; they also understand what creative music can do, where it can go when you take chances (like jazz players have been doing since the days of Buddy Bolden).  For more information, go to www.thekevinsun.com.

Jazz at The Underwood takes place in the Underwood Theater,242 Elm Street, in New Haven.  The concert, which is free and open to the public, begins at 8 p.m. For more information, go to campus press.yale.edu/jazzcollective/.