Technically Acceptable Ethan Iverson

• 1 Conundrum 01:31
• 2 Victory is Assured (Alla Breve) 02:39
• 3 Technically Acceptable 04:18
• 4 Who Are You, Really? 03:25
• 5 The Chicago Style 02:37
• 6 It’s Fine to Decline 02:58
• 7 The Way Things Are 03:50
• 8 Killing Me Softly With His Song 03:50
• 9 ‘Round Midnight 04:22
• 10 The Feeling is Mutual 04:15
• 11 Piano Sonata: Allegro Moderato 06:30
• 12 Piano Sonata: Andante 04:10
• 13 Piano Sonata: Rondo 04:42
• Total Runtime 49:07

Info for Technically Acceptable

Pianist and composer Ethan Iverson has announced the January 19 release of his 2nd Blue Note album Technically Acceptable, a far-ranging new project full of twists and turns that finds Iverson at the helm of two different trios—with bass/drum teams Thomas Morgan/Kush Abadey and Simón Willson/Vinnie Sperrazza—performing a set of striking new originals plus singular new versions of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and Thelonious Monk’s “‘Round Midnight,” the latter featuring Rob Schwimmer on theremin. The album concludes with the recorded premiere of Iverson’s Piano Sonata which is given a tour-de-force performance by Iverson himself.

Watch Iverson, Morgan, and Abadey perform the lead single “Conundrum”—which Iverson posits as the theme song for an imaginary game show—live in the studio. The trio will be celebrating the album release at the Village Vanguard in New York City from Jan. 23-28 followed by European and U.S. tours. See below for a full list of dates.

“I’m interested in trying to wrangle these almost archaic forms in a modernist way,” Iverson says. “When I play a 12-bar blues with Thomas and Kush, it doesn’t sound like 1944 in the slightest. It sounds like 2023. But at the same time, it is a serious throwback. That’s where I connect to someone like Jaki Byard, who could play the most up-to-date creative music with Eric Dolphy or play behind a blues singer and be totally comfortable. And when he played solo or trio, it all came out at once.”

The history-spanning wealth of influences and eras that Iverson has investigated as pianist, composer and critic all emerge, in often surprising and delightful ways, throughout Technically Acceptable. In the past Iverson has used his leader dates as a way to connect with and learn from elders like Billy Hart or Jack DeJohnette, the latter who appeared on Iverson’s 2022 Blue Note debut Every Note Is True. Here he’s working solely with younger musicians who find ample space for freewheeling invention even within the concise forms of these short tunes, whose pop-like precision harkens back to his days with The Bad Plus.

Through a repertoire that alights on myriad points on the jazz and classical timelines in playful yet inventive ways, Iverson allows himself the credential that christens the album. “If I’m taking the measure of my own work: I’m on a journey, but I don’t think it’s finished yet. My first album was called School Work; maybe in another ten years I’ll create the album Flawless Masterpiece. For now, I’m Technically Acceptable.”

Ethan Iverson, piano
Thomas Morgan, bass
Kush Abadey, drums

Ethan Iverson
(composer, arranger, piano) was a founding member of The Bad Plus, a game-changing collective with Reid Anderson and David King. The New York Times called TBP “…Better than anyone at melding the sensibilities of post-60’s jazz and indie rock.” During his 17-year tenure, TBP performed in venues as diverse as the Village Vanguard, Carnegie Hall, and Bonnaroo; collaborated with Joshua Redman, Bill Frisell, and the Mark Morris Dance Group; and created a faithful arrangement of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and a radical reinvention of Ornette Coleman’s Science Fiction. Iverson also has been in the critically-acclaimed Billy Hart Quartet for well over a decade and occasionally performs with an elder statesman like Albert “Tootie” Heath or Ron Carter. In 2017 Iverson co-curated a major centennial celebration of Thelonious Monk at Duke University, and in 2018 premiered an original piano concerto with the American Composers Orchestra and released a duo album with Mark Turner on ECM.

Larry Grenadier
As one of the most admired, accomplished bassists working in jazz today, Larry Grenadier has created an expansive body of work in collaboration with many of the genre’s most inventive, influential musicians – from early days playing with sax icons Joe Henderson and Stan Getz to what has been decades performing alongside pianist Brad Mehldau, from extended experiences working with the likes of Paul Motian and Pat Metheny to co-leading the cooperative trio Fly (with Mark Turner and Jeff Ballard) and quartet Hudson (with John Scofield, John Medeski and Jack DeJohnette).

Jack DeJohnette
Widely regarded as one of the great drummers in modern jazz, Jack DeJohnette has a wide-ranging style that makes him a dynamic sideman and bandleader. He has played with virtually every major jazz figure from the 1960s on, including Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, and Abbey Lincoln. His versatility on the drums is accented by DeJohnette's additional accomplishments as a keyboardist: he studied classical piano for ten years before taking up drums.

In his early years on the Chicago scene, DeJohnette was active with the premiere musician organization, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, whose members included Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, and Joseph Jarman. In 1966, he drummed alongside Rashied Ali in the John Coltrane Quintet. However, he became more widely known as a member of Charles Lloyd's band, where he first began playing with pianist Keith Jarrett. In 1968, he recorded his first album as a leader, The DeJohnette Complex, on which DeJohnette doubled on melodica.

The second major association of DeJohnette's early career spanned the years 1969-72, when he performed with Miles Davis' first fusion band. Davis gave a nod to DeJohnette in his autobiography, Miles: "Jack DeJohnette gave me a deep groove that I just loved to play over." Besides allowing him to play alongside such stellar musicians as Dave Holland, Chick Corea, and John McLaughlin, the Davis years also increased DeJohnette's session work.

DeJohnette began leading several groups in the early 1970s, including Compost, Directions, New Directions, and Special Edition, featuring a diverse gathering of musicians including David Murray, Eddie Gomez, Chico Freeman, John Abercrombie, and Lester Bowie. Since the 1980s, while continuing to lead his own projects and bands, DeJohnette has also been a member of the highly acclaimed Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette trio. DeJohnette has continued to record and perform on keyboards, releasing albums such as Zebra, a mesmerizing synthesizer/trumpet duo with Lester Bowie featuring African music influences. He further explored his interest in African music in a 2005 duet with noted Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso.

In 2005, DeJohnette launched Golden Beams Productions, an independent record label "as an outlet for the broad range of creative projects." The label garnered DeJohnette a Grammy Award for Peace Time, on which he is both featured artist and co-producer. He has composed soundtracks for both television and video, and has received numerous awards including the French Grand Prix du Disque in 1979. In 1991, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from the Berklee College of Music. DeJohnette is the winner of numerous DownBeat magazine "Drummer of the Year" critics' and readers' polls, and JazzTimes magazine's reader polls for "Best Drummer."

This album contains no booklet.