Cooper-Moore/Tom Abbs/Chad Taylor

Cooper-Moore, a creative force on the NYC free jazz scene, having played with many of the scene’s major voices including heavies like David S. Ware and William Parker’s In Order to Survive, shows the breadth and depth of his personal musical vision in Triptych Myth. It begins with the pianist’s "Stem Cell,” a propulsive Monkish line with intriguing rhythmic interplay, given Moore’s penchant for metric truncation, editing out expected beats and producing a thrusting impetus; Chad Taylor’s drums flexibly absorb these anomalies while maintaining momentum. "Nautilus” is a pensive rubato, delicate and evocative. "The Fox” is a jolly piece that put me in mind of St. Dirt Elementary School, keeping up its happy mood as Moore’s melodic blowing skips in and out of the tune’s major tonality. Overall, the piano and drums are well recorded, but the bass is, given Tom Abbs’s ingenuity and considerable chops, sadly an indistinct, muddy presence on some tracks, although he is front and centre on his own "Raising Knox,” a forceful bass feature. "Ricochet” is rapacious, the entire group, fuelled by Moore’s muscular mayhem, thrashing and slashing, all the while clairvoyantly balancing the kinetic with the sculptural. "Spenser’s Eyes” returns to the ruminative, but accompanied by exasperatingly persistent muffled drum chatter. The recording ends with a convincingly conventional "Susan,” a swinging, structured trio workout. All told, Triptych Myth "speaks” ’cause these guys play "the real shit”!