By David A. Orthmann
August 21, 2012
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Richard Sussman Quintet
Nyack Jazz Week at the Turning Point Cafe
Nyack, NY
July 22, 2012
Unlike the performance of certain forms of popular music, in which musicians dutifully strive to reproduce perfect versions of tracks from a record, a jazz CD release party proceeds from entirely different expectations. Befitting the music’s emphasis on improvisation and the element of surprise, a live set of previously recorded compositions serves as a jumping off point for differences born in the heat of the moment. On the first night of Nyack Jazz Week 2012, Richard Sussman brought a quintet into the Turning Point Café in celebration of Continuum (Origin Records, 2012). Sussman’s sharp, sophisticated and pleasing compositions invite interpretations by different personnel. He deftly balances a two-horn front line and electric textures, treating his acoustic piano and synthesizer as instruments with different capabilities, and often coaxes horn-like phrasing from the synth.