Jason Lindner: Ab Aeterno

Jason Lindner
Ab Aeterno
Fresh Sound World Jazz
2006-10-21

Luisito Quintero plays a different percussion instrument on every track of Ab Aeterno. The problem is however that Quintero’s range of implements can’t offset Jason Lindner’s bad habit of replaying a phrase once he’s coined it. He may be a rising giant — and his touch, fingering and technique impress — but Lindner plays so much of the same complete figure throughout each number that for this listener other observations become academic. The dark piano figure at the start is impressive, until repetition ceases to build tension and just maintains tedium. The arrival to the fore of the melodica comes too late. The one standout track is pretty much a reprise of Bud Powell’s composition “Glass Enclosure”, a play-through at a relatively easy pace with not a great deal of alteration, though notably the clarion calls and climaxes presented in muted fashion. I really am sorry, but I’ve had it with this one, and am really disappointed in view of what little else I’ve heard of Lindner, and how highly he’s praised. He might even be a composer, leader and soloist of the same class as Avital, of whom I have heard more elsewhere, and Luisito Quintero sounds very interesting. Hopefully I’ll feel impressed to the point of recommending all of them some other time.

RATING 4 / 10