On “Creative,” the first track of Anatomy of Angels: Live at the Village Vanguard (Verve) pianist and bandleader Jon Batiste packs what seems like eight minutes of music into a dizzying four. The composition opens with a melodious swing section that leads into a playful honky-tonk jam; a modern, whip-fast double-time riff then takes over, yielding to a soothing ballad section. When Batiste finishes with all of these contrasting musical statements, he cycles through them again—banging out some chunky chords for emphasis here and there—until his playing skitters into a sudden, calm denouement. Creative indeed.  

 Each of Batiste’s three original compositions on this album are like this, mercurial and improvisatory in feel, erudite and complex in execution.  On the second original, “Dusk Train to Doha,” he applies his nimble playing to blues and gospel language, encouraging shouts from the audience; and on the title track (which takes up more than one third of the album) he gives a hat tip to big band structures with clusters of layered horns before breaking into an exultant, full-throttle contemporary jazz concerto.

 Recorded at Village Vanguard in New York City, the album—just shy of 36 minutes long—captures only a fraction of Batiste’s six-night residency last fall. Two standards from the run made the cut: Ray Noble’s “The Very Thought of You,” with seductive, reedy vocals by singer Racheal Price against Batiste’s drawn-out comping, and Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight”—a forgivable bait and switch. What starts out as a stealthy reveal of the angular corners hidden in this tune morphs into a heavy swing number, accented with blaring horns, before slipping into a sweet, subtle rhumba. A lone trumpet propels the tune toward a shiny ending—a musical allusion, perhaps, to Gabriel, the archangel, announcing the approach of divinity.   

Anatomy of Angels: Live at the Village Vanguard: Creative; Dusk Train to Doha; The Very Thought Of You; Round Midnight; Anatomy of Angels. (35:55)

 Personnel: John Batiste, piano, vocals; Joe Saylor, drums; Phil Kuehn, bass; Rachael Price, vocals; Tivon Pennicott, tenor saxophone; Patrick Bartley, saxophone, Giveton Gelin, trumpet; Jon Lampley, trumpet.

(Reprinted from the November 2019 issue of Downbeat magazine)