All About Jazz New York feature on Denman Maroney by Marc Medwin

There are few minds as agile and inquiring as that of pianist, composer and educator Denman Maroney. Over nearly 40 years, he has managed to rethink the piano’s vocabulary, creating a readily identifiable language on the instrument. He calls his contribution “hyperpiano”, a method of playing inside the piano that is characterized by a dizzying and diverse pallet of sonorities that make the instrument into an orchestra. He has also developed an equally unique compositional language involving combined pulses, employing the phrase “temporal harmony” to describe it. Yet, there is a directness, at times almost a simplicity, in his music. With his playing and in his compositions, Maroney combines musical genres and transforms sounds we think we understand, adding depth and color, often at great speed, while never sacrificing clarity. Maroney’s love of music began quite early. “My mother claimed that when I was five, I picked out Chopin’s ‘Minute Waltz’ by ear,” he states drily. “I don’t remember it.” Whatever his first foray into the world of piano might have been, his early exposure was to classical music. “My parents had a small record collection and I remember enjoying Bizet’s Carmen and Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony, that sort of thing. I listened to those records all the time.” He continued playing the piano and remembers improvisation as being a large component of his practicing, though his teachers were not sympathetic. It wasn’t until he was 11 that jazz entered his life after seeing Thelonious Monk’s picture on a Prestige record cover. “I’d never met anyone with a goatee, growing up in suburban New Jersey; I heard the music and I was hooked.” Maroney’s college years were spent pursuing a political science degree at Williams College while studying with Jimmy Garrison, among others, at nearby Bennington College. “Bennington was where I really started playing jazz with other people and it was a fantastic experience,” he remembers fondly. However, his studies with James Tenney at California Institute of the Arts cemented the path for his future explorations. “I was also studying piano with Tenney and we worked on ragtime and on a lot of Charles Ives, out of which my ideas of temporal harmony were born. It’s a way of bringing Ives’ complex concepts of layered pulses into improvised music.” Hyperpiano also began to take shape at about that time, when Maroney made his first released recording, right after he graduated from CalArts, a project called the Negative Band, including future collaborator and fellow CalArts alum Earl Howard. “We recorded a realization of Stockhausen’s Kurzwellen, a piece in which each player imitates shortwave radio. I borrowed a couple of glockenspiel keys and started using them as slides – thus, the birth of hyper piano.” The technique would later extend to include plastic bottles, Tibetan singing bowls, potato mashers and other tools used to stop, strike and/or scrape the strings. The sounds he elicits encompass everything from bent notes to glassy shimmers and a lot in between. The techniques owe a debt to John Cage and Henry Cowell but stake out their own territory. Unfortunately, apart from the Stockhausen projects, Maroney’s earliest hyperpiano activity remains unreleased. Even when Maroney was absent from recording during the ‘80s, working fulltime in advertising, as he would do until 2005, he was involved in sampling the sounds made inside the piano. He had stopped doing this by the time he began to make CDs in the early ‘90s. “On a sampler you can only play samples; on a piano you can play anything,” he concluded. It was then that Maroney’s recorded association with bassist Mark Dresser began. Their most recent collaboration is a stunning live document, on the Israeli Kadima Collective label, of performances from 2001 and 2008. As the new millennium entered, other long-standing relationships were formed, those with Reuben Radding, Ned Rothenberg, Michael Sarin and Dave Ballou, all of whom have been integral to the realization of his recent work. To describe the nature of Maroney’s compositional vision would require a treatise. Yet, there is a remarkable unity to his pieces, composed over the last 40 years. The trajectory from the early compositions on Gaga (Nuscope) to the much more recent Udentity (Clean Feed) demonstrates a refinement and advancements of the multiple rhythmic layers associated with temporal harmony. “In the early pieces, I might have combined two different tempos, whereas in my more recent work, I might juxtapose three or four.” Despite this, the melodic and harmonic material on which Maroney draws is remarkably simple. Often triadic and employing ample space between phrases, there is a sense of modality about his tonal language that puts the rhythmic intrigue in stark relief. Ballou, Radding, Sarin and Rothenberg have the perfect sound to realize these scores, blending precision and a certain restraint with rich full sonority. “I think Udentity is my most successful integration of hyperpiano into an ensemble work to date,” explains Maroney and indeed, the clean clear recording accentuates both piano and ensemble favorably. Udentity was composed in 2006-2007 and is one of Maroney’s most ambitious works. Since 2005, he can now dedicate himself much more fully to composition and recording and several exciting projects have emerged. His most recent recording is the translucent duo Gleam, a Porter release with glass player Miguel Frasconi. Porter is also due to release a solo concert recording from Roulette, featuring an extended hyperpiano improvisation. In addition to this flurry of activity, Maroney is teaching American history part time at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. “I incorporate what I call the music of history, where I use music as a window on the important issues in American history, such as racism.” The approach is symptomatic of Maroney’s penchant for presenting music and history, as the protean forces they are.

Recommended Listening:
• Mark Dresser – The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari (Music for the Silent Film) (Knitting Factory, 1994)
• Denman Maroney – Hyperpiano (Monsey, 1998)
• Mark Dresser – Aquifer (Cryptogramophone, 2001)
• Mark Dresser/Denman Maroney – Live in Concert (Kadima Collective, 2001/2008)
• Denman Maroney – Gaga (Nuscope, 2006)
• Denman Maroney Quintet – Udentity (Clean Feed, 2008)

Alain Drouot: Top 10 and more

Top 10 of 2009
1. Michel Edelin – Kuntu – Rogue Art
2. Vijay Iyer – Historicity – ACT
3. Miroslav Vitous – Remembering Weather Report – ECM
4. Louis Moholo-Moholo/Duets with Marilyn Crispell – Sibanye (We Are One) – Intakt
5. Sophie Agnel – Capsizing Moments – Emanem
6. Darren Johnston – The Edge of the Forest (Clean Feed)
7. David Binney – Third Occasion – Mythology
8. Brian Groder – Groder & Greene – Latham Records
9. Matt Wilson Quartet – That’s Gonna Leave a Mark – Palmetto
10. Rob Mazurek – Sound Is – Delmark
Runners up
11. Alex Cline – Continuation – Cryptogramophone)
12. The Fully Celebrated – Drunk on the Blood of the Holy Ones – AUM Fidelity
13. Satoko Fujii & Myra Melford – Under the Water – Libra
14. Ben Goldberg/Charlie Hunter/Scott Amendola/Ron Miles – Go Home – BAG
15. Okkyung Lee/Peter Evans/Steve Beresford – Check for Monsters – Emanem
16. Agustí Fernández – Un Llamp Que No S’Acaba Mai – Psi
17. Steve Adams – Surface Tension – Clean Feed
18. Denman Maroney – Udentity – Clean Feed
19. Gypsy Shaeffer – New Album – PeaceTime
20. Josh Berman – Old Idea – Delmark
http://www.jazzhouse.org/diary/2010/01/alain-drouot-top-10-and-more/

Clean Feed on All About Jazz New York “Best of 2009″ list

Best Record Label
CLEAN FEED

Best New Release 2009
Herculaneum – Herculaneum III (CF 140)
Steve Adams Trio – Surface Tension (CF 131)

Best New Release 2009 – Honorable Mention 
Denman Maroney Quintet – Udentity (CF 137)
Harris Eisenstadt – Canada Day (CF 157)
Marty Ehrlich Rites Quartet – Things Have Got To Change (CF 150)
Michael Blake/Kresten Osgood – Control This (CF 136)
Paul Dunmall’s Sun Quartet – Ancient and Future Airs (CF 138 )
Renku – In Coimbra (CF 162)
Steve Swell – Planet Dream (CF 148 )
Trespass Trio – “…was there to illuminate the night sky…” (CF 149)

Best Debut Release
Nobuyasu Furuya Trio – Bendowa (CF 159)

Best Original Album Artwork 
Avram Fefer – Ritual (CF 145)

Touching Extrenes review by Massimo Ricci

DENMAN MARONEY QUINTET – Udentity (CF 137)
Pianist (or “hyperpianist”? Hold on, please) Denman Maroney is clearly trustful in the abilities of an average mind. Trying to explain the polyrhythmic concepts that underscore the large part of this music, he says that “there are at least two and more often three tempos going; the listener is free to choose which one(s) to relate to”. Perhaps this musician is not aware of the fact that the majority of a typical audience is not even able to stay anchored to a rudimentary 4/4 with a couple of shifted accents, let alone a superimposition of composed metres. Many pathetic characters come out with various kinds of bullshit about complex mathematic “mysteries” underlying the perfection of the universe, yet they could not name an interval or an elementary beat if threatened at gunpoint. Such sorts of involuntary victims of artistic diversity are not likely to be grateful for the labyrinthine qualities of this excellent album. Hell, this group doesn’t swing, if not for an allowed minimum.

Right, the hyperpiano. Besides numerous interlocking figurations executed with concentrated investigational attitude, Maroney – who appears positively gifted with a scintillating musicality coming from the insides of his brain – frequently plays the “regular” keyboard with a hand while enjoying the pleasures of extended techniques with another, the whole enhanced by the exploitation of several objects on the strings which generate “complementary overtones that move in contrary motion, one down toward the fundamental and the other up toward infinity”. Already fantasizing in regard to enhancement of awareness and realization? Wrong: the record’s title is the contraption of “undertone identity”, a concept introduced by Harry Partch which is too complicated to tackle in a sheer review. You can still learn the definition and use it in your intellectual conversations: nobody – except a few brighter individuals – go actually checking for the truthful core of these things, otherwise a lot of sapient icons would be swallowed by the very blob of their appalling ignorance.

Let’s not digress, though: the quintet performs fabulously throughout Udentity. Ned Rothenberg (alto sax, clarinets) employs a toothsome transitoriness in the methods applied, alternating altruistic repetition bathed in cutting dissonance and interchangeable anti-patterns which dignify the entire timbral tissue. He’s perfectly corresponding to the trumpet of Dave Ballou, who on a different side of the blowing spectrum avoids any kind of hypertrophic irresponsibleness, privileging lines that – although extremely respectful of the composer’s original plan – shine for intelligent restraint. If Michael Sarin’s drumming is entirely perfect for the overall design of these creations, his sober delivery a true injunction against the smell of moth-eaten “flexibility” characterizing the bulk of jazz drummers, bassist Reuben Radding is to be admired both as a solid donor of corpulent foundations for the general structure and an extemporaneous originator of bedazzling melodic sketches in places where an arcoed elegy is probably going to lead a sensitive receiver to deeper perceptions than an innocuous “pulse”.

Just to give a vague idea of how this stuff sounds, let me tell you that those whose ear-training includes Stravinsky and Zappa should greet this CD pretty warmly. Maroney has managed to tickle our interest with complications that sound good, lively, natural, without a hint of agony. Discomposure and angst are to be found somewhere else; here, we only appreciate an outstanding collective control over a series of well-developed strategies.
http://www.touchingextremes.blogspot.com/

Touching Extrenes review by Massimo Ricci

DENMAN MARONEY QUINTET – Udentity (CF 137)
Pianist (or “hyperpianist”? Hold on, please) Denman Maroney is clearly trustful in the abilities of an average mind. Trying to explain the polyrhythmic concepts that underscore the large part of this music, he says that “there are at least two and more often three tempos going; the listener is free to choose which one(s) to relate to”. Perhaps this musician is not aware of the fact that the majority of a typical audience is not even able to stay anchored to a rudimentary 4/4 with a couple of shifted accents, let alone a superimposition of composed metres. Many pathetic characters come out with various kinds of bullshit about complex mathematic “mysteries” underlying the perfection of the universe, yet they could not name an interval or an elementary beat if threatened at gunpoint. Such sorts of involuntary victims of artistic diversity are not likely to be grateful for the labyrinthine qualities of this excellent album. Hell, this group doesn’t swing, if not for an allowed minimum.

Right, the hyperpiano. Besides numerous interlocking figurations executed with concentrated investigational attitude, Maroney – who appears positively gifted with a scintillating musicality coming from the insides of his brain – frequently plays the “regular” keyboard with a hand while enjoying the pleasures of extended techniques with another, the whole enhanced by the exploitation of several objects on the strings which generate “complementary overtones that move in contrary motion, one down toward the fundamental and the other up toward infinity”. Already fantasizing in regard to enhancement of awareness and realization? Wrong: the record’s title is the contraption of “undertone identity”, a concept introduced by Harry Partch which is too complicated to tackle in a sheer review. You can still learn the definition and use it in your intellectual conversations: nobody – except a few brighter individuals – go actually checking for the truthful core of these things, otherwise a lot of sapient icons would be swallowed by the very blob of their appalling ignorance.

Let’s not digress, though: the quintet performs fabulously throughout Udentity. Ned Rothenberg (alto sax, clarinets) employs a toothsome transitoriness in the methods applied, alternating altruistic repetition bathed in cutting dissonance and interchangeable anti-patterns which dignify the entire timbral tissue. He’s perfectly corresponding to the trumpet of Dave Ballou, who on a different side of the blowing spectrum avoids any kind of hypertrophic irresponsibleness, privileging lines that – although extremely respectful of the composer’s original plan – shine for intelligent restraint. If Michael Sarin’s drumming is entirely perfect for the overall design of these creations, his sober delivery a true injunction against the smell of moth-eaten “flexibility” characterizing the bulk of jazz drummers, bassist Reuben Radding is to be admired both as a solid donor of corpulent foundations for the general structure and an extemporaneous originator of bedazzling melodic sketches in places where an arcoed elegy is probably going to lead a sensitive receiver to deeper perceptions than an innocuous “pulse”.

Just to give a vague idea of how this stuff sounds, let me tell you that those whose ear-training includes Stravinsky and Zappa should greet this CD pretty warmly. Maroney has managed to tickle our interest with complications that sound good, lively, natural, without a hint of agony. Discomposure and angst are to be found somewhere else; here, we only appreciate an outstanding collective control over a series of well-developed strategies.
http://touchingextremes.blogspot.com/2009/11/denman-maroney-quintet-udentity.html

Cadence Magazine review by Jason Bivins

Paul Dunmall Sun Quartet – Ancient and Future Airs (CF 138 )


Denman Maroney Quintet – Udentity (CF 137)
Dunmall’s visit to New York’s The Living Theater (1) finds him in a slightly unfamiliar setting given his recent work on Slam. With a trio of longtime associates, this Vision Festival set finds him in a more reflective mood alongside Malaby, whose blend of melancholy and fire has become ever more singular of late (not least in his work in Helias’ Open Loose trio). Norton’s vibes are absolutely central to the textural range of these long pieces. While “Ancient Airs” opens rather slowly, the race is on after a while, with contrapuntalism firing up the engine. Dunmall and Malaby make for a wonderfully contrastive tenor tandem, fierce in the right measure without resorting to mere burning. I reckon it’s hard not to wail once Norton hits the traps and gets things churning with Helias, but this music never loses its focus and there’s always something lyrical happening. As ever, I find it quite an exhilarating experience when Dunmall rocks the pipes, but he does so quite judiciously. After the piece plateaus, it sounds as if the band is cycling through some refracted version of Coltrane’s “One Up One Down,” audible especially with Malaby’s vertiginous solo at about the 35-minute mark. Helias’ sweet bass solo is pleasantly modal after the fury preceding it, and it cues up a somewhat (yes) airy ending. The second improvisation, at a mere 10 minutes, is a tad bitty and doesn’t really get going anywhere. But this one’s a keeper nonetheless.

Having long been a fan of Denman Maroney’s unique sound world—his “hyperpiano” is the most radically prepared innenklavier imaginable—I confess that it’s really only with this recording (2) that I realized how rhythmically acute a musician he is. His bowls, and buzzing devices, and blocks have created a richly tex-tured idiomatic extension of the piano, but these nuanced, percolating compositions are bouncing inventions that recall some fusion of Rothenberg’s Double Band, John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet, and Mark Dresser’s Force Green band from the 1990s (of which Maroney was a key member). This high praise is emphatically deserved. Beyond this general appraisal (and really, just go get this one), I have to give it up for the engine room specifically. Radding and the superb Sarin are so good, with power and grace combining almost imperceptibly, that you could risk overlooking everything else as you simply concentrate on their playing. But then there’s the exceptional contrast between the clarion lines Ballou reels out, and
Rothenberg’s intense playing, with horns as rhythmic generators fueled by circular breathing, overblowing, and more. And the tunes are pretty fabulous too, with the post Bop line on “II” sounding almost like a late 1960s Ornette tune. The loping pulse of “III” is a perfect context ready to be agitated by the heady sound of scraped metal, a continual staggering which eventuates in a stunningly inventive “piano trio” improvisation. Absolutely killer alien tones! There are soft percussive thwacks and layered tempi from the horns on “IV” and a post-Dave Burrell mutated stride thing that opens up “V.” The disc eventually loops back to the feel of beautifully fractured post Bop on “VII,” with a brilliant piano trio section again. A fantastic disc, and a strong candidate to show up on my year-end list.
©Cadence Magazine 2009 www.cadencebuilding.com

All About Jazz review by Glenn Astarita

Denman Maroney Quintet – Udentity (CF 137)
In this fascinating 2009 release, leader Denman Maroney morphs the avant-garde implications of hyperpiano fare into a semi-structured progressive jazz endeavor with tunes that are largely melodic and uncannily attainable. The artist derives influence from avant-garde composers John Cage and Henry Cowell, who used nuts, bolts and other implements to perform on the piano via unconventional methodologies.

Maroney finds ways to exploit the piano’s mechanics by bowing, plucking and sliding on the strings with bowls, knives and other miscellany. His bizarre sounds intersect the jazz element without any clashes or train wrecks. Nonetheless, Maroney is a modernist who often straddles the free-form improvisational schema with many of the jazz world’s finest instrumentalists.

The quintet executes an odd-metered jazz-funk motif during the opening “Udentity I,” showing that the band aims to maintain an angular discourse amid subtle deviations and surprises along the way. Consequently, the musicians spawn a frothy sequence of movements, complete with winding themes and reverse engineering ventures. That factor is a pattern throughout, as Maroney slips, slides and intersects among the soloists’ exchanges and solo spots, while bassist Reuben Radding generates the pliant undercurrent.

Maroney is a cunning stylist and a strong composer within the progressive jazz idiom. “Udentity II” has a close relationship with John Coltrane’s classic “Blue Train” via a similar melody line, although the ensemble veers it off into a free-jazz meltdown, enhanced by Maroney’s slithery piano-string manipulations. Elsewhere, the pianist renders whirlwind interludes with his swirling chord progressions while projecting a rather illusionary mindset.

A few passages are built on dainty themes and unorthodox frameworks, in concert with trumpeter Dave Ballou and multi-reedman Ned Rothenberg’s yearning lines. This facet works wonders on “Udentity V,” as Maroney presents an off-kilter and fragmented muse to traditional jazz, nicely accented by Michael Sarin’s syncopated drum solo.

This is a formidable and rather enterprising slant on avant-jazz. Maroney merges the best of many musical worlds by seamlessly cross-referencing solid compositional platforms with improvisation and out-of-this-world hyperpiano articulations. It’s a masterful album, abetted by the leader’s ubiquitous implementations and forward-thinking impetus.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=32998

Jazz’n'More review by Jürg Solothurnmann

DENMAN MARONEY QUINTET – Udentity (CF 137) 
Note: 4

Der 60jährige New Yorker Maroney führt den Jazz ins 21. Jahrhundert. Zu seinen Lehrern gehörten Bill Dixon, der Perkussionist/Komponist John Bergamo und Elektroniker und Komponisten wie James Tenney und Morton Subotnick. Scott Joplin, Ellington, Monk und Ornette Coleman  inspirieren ihn ebenso wie John Cage, Stockhausen, Nancarrow und Messiaen. Was er „Hyperpiano“ nennt, ist ein stark präparierter Flügel, dessen Spielweisen er extrem entwickelt hat. Die Sounds der direkt bearbeiteten Saiten ergeben eigenartige Kontraste. Die gut kommunizierenden Rothenberg und Ballou, zwei Stammspieler bei Maroney, sind progressive komponierende Improvisatoren mit „Third Stream“-Erfahrung und einem hoch differenzierten Umgang mit Struktur und Klang. Und Sarin ist ebenfalls mehr als ein blosser Jazzdrummer. Die Bezeichnung „udentity“ für Identität der Untertöne stammt vom Komponisten Harry Partch. Maroney ist engagiert, aber nicht ohne Selbstironie. Seine Kompositionen „Udentity 1-7“ gehen bruchlos in ebenso vielschichtige Kollektivimprovisationen über mit Kombinationen schier disparater Elemente. Besonders frappant sind die Ueberlagerungen ungleicher Tempi und Rhythmen. „Udentity 1“ beginnt das z.B. wie verfremdeter Funk, und „Udentity 2“ bedient sich bei „Blue Trane“. Alles kann mit stilistisch und thematisch einen unerwarteten Verlauf nehmen. Zwar eine Knacknuss, aber auch nach mehrmaligem aufmerksamem Anhören entdeckt man noch Neues.

All About Jazz Italy by Enrico Bettinello

Denman Maroney – Udentity (CF 137)
****
Per Denman Maroney – musicista dalle eccellenti qualità e frequentazioni, anche se poco noto dalle nostre parti – il pianoforte è un “mondo” espanso, che si apre, tramite le preparazioni e le tecniche non convenzionali, a nuove avventure timbriche, armoniche e espressive. Uno dei risultati più riusciti di questo suo percorso viene condiviso con gli altri componenti di un quintetto completato dai sassofoni e clarinetti di Ned Rothenberg, dalla tromba di Dave Ballou e dalla spettacolare ritmica completata da Reuben Radding e Mike Sarin.
Suddiviso in sette parti e nominato secondo un termine coniato da Harry Partch che combina undertone e identity, questo Udentity è un lavoro davvero stimolante, che esplora relazioni numeriche temporali e armoniche, ma che coinvolge in particolare per la grande flessibilità tra i complessi aspetti formali e la libertà espressiva dei musicisti coinvolti.

Chiaro che con una simile “squadra” – già collaudata da precedenti collaborazioni del leader – le cose siano facilitate [Rothenberg è uno degli improvvisatori più originali e condivisivi dell'intera scena newyorkese], ma il merito va certamente ascritto anche a Maroney, che tinteggia di sonorità aliene e intriganti le mobili piattaforme ritmiche su cui si muove la musica.

Tra riff contagiosi e architetture sempre spiazzanti, Udentity rivela anche una straordinaria qualità emotiva, che smentisce senza troppo clamore il luogo comune secondo il quale le musiche più avventurose e sperimentali devo essere un po’ faticose all’ascolto. Il futuro del jazz passa anche da queste parti.
http://italia.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=3853

All About Jazz review by Marc Medwin

Inside the Piano: Germinal; Gold; The Ill-Tempered Piano; Udentity 
 
Agusti Fernandez & Ingar Zach – Germinal (Plastic Strip)
Magda Mayas & Tony Buck – Gold (Creative Sources)
Nicola Cipani – The Ill-Tempered Piano (Long Song)
Denman Maroney – Udentity (CF 137)

Four very different approaches to the piano breed startling and fresh results and prove that there are still many avenues of inquiry and research available to those interested in the beloved 88.

In fact, use of the actual 88 keys is in relatively short supply on these albums. They become features of accent, just one of many ways to access the piano’s complex inner workings. They are used in the opening moments of pianist Agusti Fernandez’ chilling “Volutas” from Germinal, for example, but are then rapidly replaced by long-toned bowings. Throughout this astonishingly diverse disc, it is difficult to tell whether it is piano or Ingar Zach’s percussion that is responsible for individual timbres. The beautifully haunting “Arcano” swims by as glacial tones abound, the performers becoming a single entity.

Of similar interest but not nearly as sparse is Gold, the collaborative effort of pianist Magda Mayas and drummer Tony Buck. To say that the disc is more ‘traditional’ is only to affirm that the atomistic approach of ’60s ‘free’ jazz is in effect here, which has become a tradition in its own right. Maya’s instrument moans, sighs and whispers, in contrast to Buck’s more and more explosive percussives, making “Mercury”‘s epic unfolding a study in long-range dynamic and sonic contrast even as it changes dramatically from moment to moment. Despite references to established modes of expression, there’s nothing sterile about this venture into duo improv.

Nicola Cipani’s exploration of broken-down New York pianos, The Ill-Tempered Piano, results in a fascinating collection of improvisations where necessity is truly the mother of invention. The impression, from a track such as “Scemophonia,” is that each piano is capable of little else and the disc’s success is a credit to Cipani’s creativity. Transgeographical gestalts are sometimes invoked purely as a symptom of a piano’s condition, as on the microtonally mesmerizing “Outsourced Music”. No matter how ‘out’ the tunings, many rhythmic constructions are fairly simple, evoking swing or funk.

The same can be said of Denman Maroney’s quintet session Udentity, yet the references don’t stop there. Is that “Blue Train” audible in the second track? Given the veteran status of all those involved—Ned Rothenberg (alto sax, clarinet and bass clarinet), Dave Ballou (trumpet), Reuben Radding (bass) and Michael Sarin (drums)—it wouldn’t be surprising. Be that as it may, Maroney’s trademark hyperpiano is complemented by the pointilistic jabs, thrusts and sinews of the other musicians, some old-fashioned keyboard work dominating the latter half of this typically diverse and endlessly fascinating album.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=32731