It is a cliché, although one for good reason, that jazz music is most often philosophically divided twofold. Exhibit A: jazz is a verb. As such, anything can be jazz as long as you make it so. And you, as a capital a “Artist” have an obligation to evolve (to use an often-cited scientific term), the jazz artform to ever new, different, and progressive places, lest the music ossify into grains of moldy fig dust, becoming the sonic analog of the dinosaurs who once roamed the earth. Exhibit B: jazz as noun. Here, jazz means a specificity of musical gesture (swing, blues, song form, codified improvisatory practices, instrumentation—for some, electric guitars need not apply). Pre-existing and widely understood, these classic jazz performance practices are easily locatable on seminal recordings, with traceable threads linking back to this music’s rich history, tradition, and legacy. Given that a slightly manipulated familiar adage is that in mixed company one should never talk politics, religion, or jazz music, it is easy to see how quickly the aforementioned divide can crystalize into ideological camps where never the twain shall meet.

The reality, of course, is more nuanced and less bifurcated. Great jazz musicians, such as the Canadian pianist Bernie Senensky, play with the aforementioned traditional vs. modernist binary. And when the forces coalesce, as they do on the recording here, the results are thrilling. Senensky and bands (plural)—representing two performance opportunities from 2001 and 2020—serve up music that sounds simultaneously historically situated and from the future. Similar to the way in which the film director Christopher Nolan manipulates time (Memento, Dunkirk, and most recently in Oppenheimer, where there are at least four distinct timelines running throughout, as well as multiple character points of view as indicated through shifting subjective colour and objective black-and-white sequences), Senensky throws artistic conception, repertoire, and even the conceit of four-square beats per measure into a sort of space-time continuum flux.

Take, for example, saxophonist Eric Alexander’s 1999 composition “Stand Pat,” a crackerjack dedication to guitar great Pat Martino, in whose late career bands Alexander played. Situated programmatically next to Irving Berlin’s 1911 warhorse “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” Senensky demonstrates his trademark elasticity of time here, not only in how he skillfully locates the points of connection that bridge a nearly ninety-year compositional difference, but in the extemporaneous manner in which he weaves his serpentine bebop lines through a set of complex chord changes, pre-empting moments of harmonic change and delaying the points of respite and resolution. The effect, as one can both hear and feel, is deliciously unsettling, exhilarating, and a hallmark of Senensky’s unparalleled improvisational approach that have earned him a fan base that included Gary Bartz, Bobby Watson, Tisziji Muñoz, and Bill Evans.

As mentioned earlier, this recording captures two distinct musical moments in time. Separated by some twenty years and showcasing two bands with Senensky at the helm, the album is as much a testimony to the pianist’s ability to band lead across generations and borders with his trademark intensity and aplomb, as it is an acknowledgement of the reality of being a contemporary 21st century jazz musician in an era of pick-up bands and one-or two-night musical engagements (have piano, will travel). While gone may be the days of longstanding ensembles, Senensky on recordings such as this, shows how a meaningful career filled with rich contributions to the canon of great jazz recordings and performances can be assembled gig after gig, moment to moment.

And that brings me to the album’s title. It is a truism that both jazz, and life for that matter, are about the moments. Sometimes fleeting and often ephemeral, these moments accrete over time, building memories that cascade influence on a sort of continuum that inspires, thrills, and live on long after the initial moment has passed. There likely will, for example, never be another second chorus exactly like the dynamic one that Senensky plays here on his original composition “Blues For E.J.” Better, possibly. Different, no doubt. But not the same. Accordingly, rather than thinking of jazz as an evolutionary straight line progressing from the above mentioned traditional to modern categorization—shedding its more anachronistic affectations like some sort of Darwinian tail or sixth toe along the way—revel in how the moments co-exist, as they do on the recording here, into a fulsome snapshot of Senensky’s amazing musical career and journey. Thankfully, these particular moments were captured beautifully and can be enjoyed here. Here’s to many more!

Andrew Scott