That / Not Tyshawn Sorey

• 1 Leveled 08:50
• 2 Template, Pt. 1 04:30
• 3 Sympathy 03:55
• 4 Permutations for Solo Piano 42:48
• 5 Seven Pieces for Trombone Quartet 11:01
• 6 Template, Pt. 2 03:49
• 7 Sacred and Profane 22:50
• 8 Template, Pt. 3 03:23
• 9 Four Duos 09:02
• 10 Cell Block 22:55
• 11 That's a Blues, Right? 09:09
• 12 Template, Pt. 4 04:15
• 13 Commentary 06:56
• 14 Figment 18:07
• 15 Quiescence 07:11
• 16 Mediation 04:51
• 17 4 Hands, Pt. 1 02:31
• 18 4 Hands, Pt. 2 02:42
• Total Runtime 03:08:45

Info for That / Not

New York drummer/pianist/composer Tyshawn Sorey steps out as a leader for the first time with That/Not, leaving behind his role as a drummer with some of the most respected names in creative music to document his own work as a composer and conceptualist. Sorey and the members of his year-old quartet collaborate in various combinations, exploring a wide range of pieces both notated and freely improvised, on a collective journey with the listener that defies conventional notions of genre and perception.

"This record is very different from the work that I do with other ensembles," Sorey explains. "I am a drummer who composes music; the function of this album is not a demonstration of my abilities as a drummer, but my interests as an artist. My objective with this music is to question who and why we are, to question the very nature of what it means to perceive something. The music here is our life and soul expressed in sound.

Tyshawn Sorey, drums, piano
Ben Gerstein, trombone
Cory Smythe, piano, Wurlitzer
Thomas Morgan, bass

Tyshawn Sorey
Newark-born multi-instrumentalist and composer Tyshawn Sorey is celebrated for his incomparable virtuosity, effortless mastery and memorization of highly complex music, and extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work. He has performed nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, as well as with such artists as John Zorn, Vijay Iyer, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, Marilyn Crispell, Steve Lehman, Evan Parker, and Myra Melford, among many others. The New York Times has praised Sorey for his instrumental facility and aplomb, “he can play the drums not only with gale-force physicality, but also a sense of scale and equipoise”; The Wall Street Journal has critically acclaimed his work as, “a composer of radical and seemingly boundless ideas.” He has received commissions and support for his genre-crossing compositions from The Shifting Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, Van Lier Fellowship, Spektral Quartet, and The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). He also collaborates regularly with ICE as a percussionist and composer. As a leader, Sorey has released four critically acclaimed recordings: That/Not (Firehouse 12), Koan (482 Music), Oblique I (Pi), and Alloy (Pi). In 2012 he was selected as one of nine composers for the Other Minds residency (2012), where he exchanged ideas with such like-minded peers as Ikue Mori, Ken Ueno, and Harold Budd. In 2013 JazzDanmark invited him to serve as the Danish International Visiting Artist. Sorey has taught and lectured on composition and improvisation at Columbia University, The New School, The Banff Centre, Wesleyan University, International Realtime Music Symposium, Hochschule für Musik Köln, Berklee College of Music, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Danish Rhythmic Conservatory. His works have been premiered at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Walt Disney Hall, Roulette, Issue Project Room, and the Stone, among other venues.

This album contains no booklet.