Trumpeter Michael Sarian is a veteran of a myriad of iconic jazz stages, from the Kennedy Center to the Blue Note to the Montreux Jazz Festival. He is an established composer and improviser with several releases on 577 Records, recordings with Olec Mün on piano and Coffee Records, and his own quartet’s work on ears&eyes and Shifting Paradigm Records. He performs on his own custom “SARIAN” mouthpieces, made in France by Atelier Donat. And he is in demand and indefatigable as a sideman, playing on stadium stages with household-name pop groups.

On his latest release, Esquina, the Toronto-born, Buenos Aires-raised, and NYC-based musician leads his quartet through more than fifty-five minutes of riveting, corner-turning jazz exploration—sure to delight fans of Miles Davis’ electric period and Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet alike.

What’s particularly remarkable—apart from the remarkable music itself—is that Sarian is working here with the same musicians he has collaborated with on his previous three releases. Those records were more or less works of chamber jazz—mostly acoustic, brimming with beautiful and clear melodies, and drawing comparisons to artists like ECM veteran Kenny Wheeler. Esquina, however, is an intentional and daringly sharp turn into pulsating jazz fusion, marked by wild, Jon Hassell-esque processed trumpet, synthesizers and electric organs, and galloping rhythms that wouldn’t be out of place on Agharta or On the Corner.

Born from Sarian’s need to challenge himself and his collaborators, the music on Esquina was recorded with little to no rehearsals, following graphic scores formed from drawings and sketches Sarian made during downtime on a four-month stadium tour as a pop band sideman. In no small sense, then, Esquina can be thought of as a kind of shadow work. Whether deliberately, intuitively, or somewhere in between, Sarian responded to months of mainstream pop music and a rigid tour schedule with experimentation, adventure, and play. And to no small extent, he also responded to the stability he had built by playing with Nathan Ellman-Bell, Marty Kenney, and Santiago Leibson.

Sarian, of course, could have simply assembled a different band, designed specifically to deliver the aesthetic he had in mind. But in coaxing reinvention out of this established crew, he imbues Esquina with a sense of profound yet playful challenge, building on the near-telepathic connection these players share.

Track Listing:

1. Straight Trash (19:19)
2. Floating Ballerinas (25:28)
3. Glory Box (6:37)

Personnel:

Michael Sarian – Trumpet/FX
Santiago Leibson – Fender Rhodes, Hammond B3, Mini Moog, Wurlitzer
Marty Kenney – Electric Bass
Nathan Ellman Bell – Drums

Production Credits:

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Luis Bacqué at Bacqué Recording in Roselle, NJ, January 21, 2024

Executive Producer – Dave Douglas
Producer – Michael Sarian

Artwork by Michael Sarian
CD Layout by Lukas Frei

Straight Trash and Floating Ballerinas by Michael Sarian (ASCAP)
Glory Box by Isaac Hayes, Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons and Adrian Francis Utley (Chrysalis Music Ltd.)

Press: