Tyshawn Sorey
by Darius Jager

"Hopefully the music will be played the way I want it," remarked Tyshawn as he casually took the stage. His group was comprised of four members, Loren Stillman on alto saxophone, Carlos DeRosa on contra-bass, Carl Maguire on a Fender Rodes keyboard, and Tyshawn himself on drum-set. Each performer, besides Tyshawn, had a music stand laden with page upon page of text composed entirely by Sorey. To the audiences delight, the show was now ready to begin.

As the first chord struck, the mood changed from casual dining to that of quizzical evaluation and intense listening. The sounds produced by this group were completely new. For the audience, many family friends and locals were awestruck by this onslaught of sound. Being experienced with the writing style of Tyshawn Sorey, I was able to look past the shock-factor and try to understand what was actually going on in the composition.

The pieces moved through every time signature imaginable while flowing melodic lines from the sax and the keyboards delicately weaved their way through the ever-changing chordal construct. The illusion of keys was given, but no solid tone set hung around for any considerable amount of time. Sections of pieces in the first set were marked by parallel fourths, which proved a powerful technique in complimenting repeating sections. This being very important as congruencies in this stream-of-consciousness writing style appeared slim to none upon first listen.

The group broke for fifteen and the crowd changed form as William Paterson students, anxious to catch a glimpse of their alumnus, replaced friends and family. One of these students was Ryan Clackner who was called to the stage to perform an extremely avant-garde arrangement of Thelonious Monk's "Bempsha Swing," which climaxed to an apex of controlled chaos.

Aside from the phenomenal technical performance from each of these players, an unfortunate trend began to take place in this second set. Timing issues, mainly by the keyboardist, resulted in Sorey calling out "1, 2, 3, 4" in a degrading and obvious tone, along with shaking his head and cutting off the rhythm section entirely until the problem worked itself out. At this point, I am stressed out. I feared enjoying the piece in anticipation of a stoppage to take me out of the moment. In my mind, this was a severe distraction to understanding the performance as a whole. Yet I feel the in Tyshawn's mind, these outbursts were necessary. If he had not acted in this way, we would have believed the piece was written as heard. Ty's clear contempt, explained these off notes and rhythms.

Overall, this concert was a clear success. Sorey explained after the show that many of these pieces are part of a seventeen-piece songbook written for the group. A tour with the group is imminent in 2006. In the meantime, Tyshawn Sorey will continue to pump out song after song of new and original music and to tweak his way to perfection.

Darius Jager

-posted to The Great Hoboes of New York, July 9, 2005