NYSQ‘s latest recording, Power of 10 is their second release for Whirlwind and a tribute to their ten years of performing together. The band came together when three of New York’s busiest jazz players noticed they had one thing in common: Japan. Tim Armacost is a grammy nominated tenor saxophonist who has performed with Kenny Barron, Bob Hurst and Ray Drummond among many others, and is the group’s founder. He had lived in Tokyo several times and performed there for years. Gene Jackson, a drumming powerhouse well-known from his nine years in the Herbie Hancock trio as well as his performances with Dave Holland, the Mingus Band and Wayne Shorter, had recently married a Japanese woman and was splitting his time between New York and Tokyo. David Berkman, a fiery pianist who is both rooted in the jazz tradition and a harmonically adventurous improviser and composer, is a 30+ year NYC veteran of many bands including Tom Harrell, The Vanguard Orchestra and countless others. Berkman, also married to a Japanese woman, was traveling to Japan with increasing frequency.

Of course, it turns out they had a lot more in common than a love of Japanese culture. They had an approach to playing standards honed by their years on the NY Jazz scene, leading their own bands of original music and playing with jazz legends. Berkman, who writes much of the band’s repertoire, has a distinctive flair for re-casting well-known jazz standards in new and unexpected settings. ​On Power of 10, ​ Songs like “Deep High Wide Sky” and “Hidden Fondness” are melodies based on the chord progressions of “How Deep is the Ocean” and a reharmonized, “Secret Love”. In the band’s hands, his arrangement of the well worn standard “All of Me” becomes a daring, harmonically tense vehicle for Armacost’s mighty soprano playing and Jackson’s powerful drumming. Armacost’s arrangement of “Lush Life” brings a new perspective to this classic Strayhorn ballad and his “Green Doll’s Phone” is a playful treatment of “On Green Dolphin Street” written to showcase the brilliant technical prowess of bassist Michael Janisch who joined them for this recording. Gene Jackson, the band’s rhythmic center who drives the music forward with fire and infectious good spirits, is much in evidence throughout the session and contributes his arrangement of Elvin Jones’ “Three Card Molly.”

What began as a happy coincidence of three friends in a foreign land has grown into a mature collective that is more than the sum of its impressive parts. The band has toured extensively in Japan, the U.K., around Europe and the United States for ​t​en​ years. These days, that is an extremely rare accomplishment in the jazz world, where economic pressures work against band longevity. The close connection between the members is evident throughout this recording: an idea starts with one player and is picked up and developed by another​ ​risk taking and improvisation abound, but there’s a sense of warmth, enjoyment and shared purpose that permeates all of these performances.

This has become the hallmark of this group’s playing: an easy rapport with one another developed through ten years of playing together and interpreting jazz classics in a highly engaging and personal way. The audience response has been phenomenal, in part because they give the listener something familiar to grab on to, before throwing in the bends and quirks that NYSQ has become known for, creating modern shapes and visions of these well-known ​songs​. Or to quote John Fordham ​from The Guardian ​in his rave review ​from a recent UK tour:

“The exciting New York Standards Quartet, a group devoted to the radical reinvention of famous pop songs and Broadway show tunes…(is) a collective class act, and a delightful surprise…​ ​Playing jazz standards their way.”

Here’s a full length version of Deep High Wide Sky from the album: