DOWN

Rich Pellegrin Quintet

For his third OA2 recording, composer/pianist Rich Pellegrin presents his decade-old quintet performing five enigmatic compositions - from the raw intensity of "Trial" to the mystical, inscrutable hues of the title cut, "Down" - along with an extended alternate version of "Down," recorded with a contemporary classical ensemble at the University of Missouri - the Mizzou New Music Ensemble. Together, eleven diverse musicians create a radiant texture of interweaving lines, extending the vital, collaborative focus for which the band is already known.

PURCHASE album

Praise for Down

​Moments of absolute bliss. . . . Pellegrin does as the great pianists do, providing encouragement and graceful touches in the background, before jumping forward to take solos that are by turns florid and cracked, balletic and modern.
     – Downbeat Magazine 
         ​(Robert Ham)

[Pellegrin’s] sense of the timbral possibilities of the piano and appreciation of its high and low ends breathes a vitality into his solos.
      – Earshot Jazz Magazine 
           ​(Ian Gwin)

Absolutely fresh and exciting. . . . Pellegrin successfully pushed the Mizzou New Music Ensemble out of their comfort zone, making non-jazz-trained musicians improvise, and it sounds completely natural.
      – The Answer is in the Beat  WCBN, Ann Arbor ​(Paul Simpson)

Impressive intricate bop work...cohesive and clever in harmonies all throughout...deep reflection and ruminations...modern sensibilities of visceral attractions. 
​     – Jazz Weekly
           (George Harris)

A rich, expansive, and beautifully-textured sound experience.
     – All About Jazz (★★★★)
          ​(Dan McClenaghan)

Down is proof that jazz in 2019 can sound topical and modern without explicitly leaning on current hypes. A CD that would not look out of place in the ECM catalog.
     – Jazzenzo Jazz Magazine, Netherlands
​         (Georges Tonla Briquet)

A wild, magic carpet ride.
     – Midwest Record  
           (Chris Spector)

Pellegrin’s piano textures become a thing of beauty, an exercise in controlled chaos, a test of mettle he ultimately aces.
     – Columbia Daily Tribune  
          ​(Aarik Danielsen)

Down signals the full maturity of a pianist in whom freedom and compositional rigor combine perfectly with the vigor and creativity of Pellegrin and his quintet.
      – Jazz Convention, Italy
​          (Nicola Barin)