Kerry Politzer Trio. (Briefly Noted).(Watercolor)(Sound Recording Review)

Kerry Politzer Trio. Watercolor. Polisonic 01, 2002.

On her second album, pianist Kerry Politzer strips things down, foregoing vocals and limiting her accompaniment to drums and bass. As always, her compositions are complex and impressive: "Sparks" is something of a tone poem, in which melodic fragments dance upwards through the air, propelled by a subtly beboppish rhythmic pattern; "Watercolor" takes a similarly literal approach to its titular theme, spreading its chordal washes broadly across the song's structure; "Whim" is almost Thelonious Monkish in the angularity of its central theme; "Woodpecker" ...