The End of Fear

The second album by collaborative piano trio Tarbaby (pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Nasheet Waits) is a raucous, almost anarchic affair studded with guest appearances from alto saxophonist Oliver Lake, tenor saxophonist JD Allen, and trumpeter Nicholas Payton. The repertoire includes tunes by Sam Rivers, Fats Waller, Andrew Hill, Paul Motian; a few originals; and a stunning — in an I-can’t-believe-how-well-this-works way — sprint through the Bad Brains’ “Sailin’ On,” with Revis’s bowed bass, fed through some kind of pedal, handling HR’s vocal melody and Evans taking a powerhouse Cecil Taylor/Don Pullen-style solo, all in 78 seconds. Tarbaby’s music embraces all of jazz history, and indeed all of black music, as evidenced by the sample of Duke Ellington talking about how to him, the word means “freedom of expression” — past, present and a self-created future all swirl together in a genuinely syncretic and thrilling way.