A symbiotic collaboration between Vancouver clarinet innovator François Houle, Toronto/New York drummer Harris Eisenstadt, and British jazz pianist Alexander Hawkins produces a memorable album of exquisite music. Unusually for a Songlines release, there are three “covers”, interpretations of works by Steve Lacy, Andrew Hill and classical music maverick Charles Ives. The mood of calm reflection is enhanced by John Raham’s 24/96 engineering and artful mixes by François Houle. – Mark Werlin, All About Jazz

You Have Options features this collective trio conceived when the late Ken Pickering, co-founder and artistic director of Vancouver’s jazz festival, recommended Alexander Hawkins for the piano chair in a new Francois Houle project for the 2014 festival. Houle already had Brooklyn-based fellow-Canadian Harris Eisenstadt in mind – Harris had recently toured and recorded in his 5+1 project (Genera, Songlines 2012).

Eisenstadt and Hawkins had played together for years in the collective Convergence Quartet. After two exciting festival performances the project lay dormant until the opportunity to record in Vancouver in 2016. Everyone brought compositions of their own to the session, and it was decided to add tunes by Steve Lacy and Andrew Hill and an improvisational version of a Charles Ives clarinet/violin/piano piece. The feeling in the studio was relaxed; the music that resulted has a spacious, poised quality. It was something François had been thinking about: “There’s a shared language and sensibility among us…guiding lines that we gravitate towards. Having said that, I had a feeling there was enormous potential for more poetic and refined elements in our musicmaking. Within an energetic space we knew we could generate lots of efficient ideas together, but it’s the potential for a quieter, more introspective approach that intrigued me… Most of the material I brought to the session was fairly melody-centric. During the session I could feel a quiet energy settling…which led us to play with a slightly different perspective.” (Harris feels the music has a sense of “tranquility, even during the densest moments.”)

A good example of the level of interplay is Eisenstadt’s “You Have Options, I Have a Lawyer,” as described by Alex: “Around the 3:00 mark I start playing a syncopated discord figure in the right hand, and check out how Harris’ snare drum jumps right on it…Harris then introduces a figure on the toms at 3:40 which seems to prod the piano right hand in turn to jump into a melodic idea. Meanwhile, François is just working away on this beautiful two-clarinet figure, sailing above all this.”

And in Houle’s “Run Riot,” the most intense and free piece on the record, François points to “a real ecstatic musical moment where everything comes into focus rhythmically, harmonically, and energetically (1:16 to 1:30). It’s moments like this (to my ears) that make the whole endeavour of improvisation worthwhile.” Alex responds: “An interesting flip side to the joy of music making together is the way people who get on and are having fun can still capture a sort of melancholy. Harris’s ‘The Pitts’ is a nice example…it’s an almost impossibly sad tune in some ways! But what I love about the performance is the total lack of sentimentality – like Monk. We play it a little bit like Michelangeli plays Chopin.”

Francois Houle, Clarinet
Harris Eisenstadt, Drums
Alexander Hawkins, Piano