‘Improbable Solutions’: Bill Anschell’s Electronically Enhanced Album Goes Beyond Straight-Ahead Jazz
Sounding better than ever, Seattle pianist wakes up nine electro-acoustic tracks with jolts of comforting, captivating reinvention
“I don’t know if you’re still writing reviews, but whether you are or not, I wanted to share my new CD with you. It’s totally different from my others — not straight-ahead at all, because there are extensive electronic sounds involved. So far, the reviews have been great, but I know this won’t be to everyone’s taste. I’m really proud of the music and the mix; probably my most personal CD to date.”
Wait, this one’s different. Better, in fact.
Seattle artist Bill Anschell always puts out a quality product, whether he’s recording or performing. If it’s possible, his latest album, Improbable Solutions (Origin Records), stands out from the rest (about 10 projects, solo and collab) as only an electronically enhanced jolt from the blue can.
The nine original tunes Anschell composed himself took longer than usual to realize, years over days and hours.
“This CD marks a big change of direction for me. I recorded my last CD in three and a half hours; this one took more than three and a half years,” Anschell wrote in the liner notes. “My last CD was all jazz standards; this one is all originals. My last CD had just piano, bass and drums; this one adds guitar, percussion, and layered electronics.”
The layered electronics took even more care. The pianist has had a love affair with “synth-driven” prog-rock since high school and wanted to see what he could do with his electro-acoustic pieces, whittling down 21 ideas (during Covid) into nine fully composed spirit-moods.
“The sounds I use in the project never mimic acoustic instruments, so it’s been a fun challenge to work them into the more traditional jazz context of a piano trio,” he added in the liner notes.
He prided himself on doing all the work by hand (“None of the electronic sounds came straight out of the box; I enjoyed getting into their innards and surgically tweaking them to fit the songs”), while allowing his trusted colleagues — bassist Chris Symer and drummer Jose Martinez among them — to do their own thing on the programmed placeholders.
I don’t know a lot about the hows and whys involved in the making of such a labor of technique and feel, the knobs and mics and MIDIs required for sounds to reach their maximum potential. I don’t geek out to the latest stereophonic gadgets coming out of the audio industry, much less spend countless late-night hours hovered over and around the speakers playing one Brand X/Starcastle album after another, nodding appreciatively.
But I do know this album is special. It stops me in my tracks and makes me go back to listen again and again, and it makes me feel things I haven’t felt before, or in a long time.
There’s an adventurous, open-minded spirit intrinsic to the prog-rock-jazz movements of old at play here, swirling around the synth infusions that spark and whip and rustle grounding, lucid traces of melancholic melody — despite a mostly cheerful, diligent façade that is Bill Anschell’s nature.
I hear the child-like banter of David Bowie in his last days, listening and responding to the musculature of jazz saxophone wizard Donny McCaslin on their cross-over, Grammy-award-winning Blackstar (“Outburst,” “Is This Thing Even On?”). I hear what might’ve been the last gasp of Mozart-meets-Beethoven after having fallen truly in love with an old soul, a charm bracelet of musicality and illusion — the push-pull of youth versus maturity (“Abandoned”). I hear John Coltrane coming together with Ron Carter (“Ambulator”) for a new age…Pat Metheny, Yellowjackets, and yes, Brand X (“Hidden Nobility”) coming through in muted, assuaged waves.
I hear Bill Anschell’s familiar, comforting genius wrapped around heartwarming lyrical narratives (“Naked Truth”) that seem to tell the story of a man in search of peace and finding himself in the most gracious, sporadic places.
If there is a show-stopper, it’s “Hidden Nobility,” the one that sinks deep, holding on with a poetic fervor…
The longest track clocking in at over seven minutes, “Hidden Nobility” starts off dramatically on Anschell’s foretelling piano, promising a myriad of twists and turns, and maybe a glimpse of another side of the artist, one he’s discovering himself.
Musically full, multi-faceted, and enriching, each note shimmers as it falls, sinking into a fruitful overgrowth of tonal, moody dispersion. It’s how the musicians touch their keys — light, firm, lingering, floating, enfolding — a channeling of all their favorite songs, artists, and fond, remembered times.
The melodic theme over a steady, porous bassline glitters, outstretched with yearning…and spritely optimism, as if calling to mind the best and brightest moments from childhood’s past: traces and vibes from the cusp, wave, and wane of prog-rock-jazz from the 1960s to the early ‘80s, with that star-crossed ending in the British hit movie, “Gregory’s Girl.”
Anschell plays as if he’s picking up interesting items left strewn along a hike in the woods, admiring the shine of a naked, quartz-studded chunk off an heirloom jewelry box, the crack in a pewter whistle of a Civil War general, the rusty, faded engraving on the back of a camera case that once held precious family memories.
Monroney torches his guitar finale like a red-sky-at-night setting sun in oncoming traffic, a churning, devilish flue — with a touch of the synth blinkers on, resonating flashbacks of listening to grandma’s kitchen radio tripping over FM rarities — warning us all to hurry home now and rest awhile.
Another memorable tune, “Abandoned,” encroaches and elaborates on Anschell’s signature piano solo melancholy with each and every lonely note. The rest of his band quietly syncs up and sinks in, filling pockets of circular pageantry with their individual brandishing personality…essentially creating something out of nothing — gods in search of a hit parade.
“Abandoned” references “Naked Truth” and vice versa as somber ballads roaming free, quietly existential, yet penetrating. Both tunes, as well as the whole album, exudes the essence of musical, mystical inference — a trait of classically inclined jazz artists who yearn for more.
The track that really pushes Anschell’s boundaries is the last one, “Outburst,” thanks to the aggressive overall parlay and Donny McCaslin-type brew of guest artist, saxophonist-for-hire, percussionist KJ Sawka (Pendulum, Destroid) and guitarist Brian Monroney on synth steroids.
“Outburst” reminds me of a Bowie/McCaslin brainstorm session, perhaps the bonus track that never developed.
Anschell’s piano bass acts like a spy stealth bomber, tip-toeing resolutely up some hill to die on, setting up an urgent, frenetic time table, along with Sawka’s hurried, flurry of kicks and stands.
The final act is almost rock opera-ish, the second coming of The Who’s “Tommy…” Quite a departure from Anschell’s usual laidback, hands-in-pocket straight-ahead style — and most welcome.
You’ll want to go back to the first track to make sure you’re not seeing things.
You’re not.
Bill Anschell’s just that talented.
I have been listening to Bill's music and it evokes a gamut of emotions. Mahalo!