Balance

Over five albums as a leader, New York pianist Ben Winkelman has been developing his concept for the piano trio, seeking to strike an elusive balance between composition and improvisation, planning and spontaneity, the intellectual and the intuitive, all with his steadily working group. His featuring of the three instruments, not only as soloists, but as if they were a small orchestra, gave them each integral parts in the compositions expanding the overall voice of the trio. For "Balance," his sixth recording, Winkelman went into Sear Sound in New York with drummer Obed Calvaire and bassist Matt Penman, artists he highly respected but had yet to perform with, to add new energy and joyful unforeseen outcomes as they explore his ongoing interests in Afro-Cuban, gospel and classical music, but filtered through their collective jazz perspective.