Out Late

JAZZ MUSICIANS ARE NOCTURNAL BY NATURE. Almost as essential as time spent on the bandstand are the hours celebrated in the hang, where bonds are forged that inevitably feed back into the spirit and camaraderie of the music.

Those strong ties, lifelong relationships, and late-night revelries are vibrantly illustrated on Out Late, the exhilarating and inventive album from pianist and composer Eric Scott Reed. Out Late boasts a striking stellar quintet whose members share deep histories with one another as well as with the label’s namesake Manhattan club. The date features Reed with trumpeter Nicholas Payton, tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, bassist Peter Washington, and drummer Joe Farnsworth.

“Every city has its own late-night vibration,” says Reed. “No shade to Paris or Vegas or Philly or Los Angeles, but being in New York City is not like being anywhere else in the world. Out Late references the life of the musicians – the nightlife and the activity, the feeling and the energy of those NYC vibrations.”

“Out Late, of course, is also a reference to finding myself much later in life,” he explains. “It’s about finally being able to embrace myself – my whole totality, my whole personage, who I am, who I love, why I do what I do, and how it’s all intertwined.”

In assembling the quintet of modern masters for this session, he has called on some of his earliest acquaintances. Their rich shared history and Reed’s newly reinvigorated self-confidence all commingled to inspire him to trust in a more spontaneous atmosphere for this date. “At this point in life, I’m just going with the flow,” Reed says.

The pianist points out that every track on Out Late is a first take – an insistence that prioritizes feeling and passion over perfection. The album was recorded in vintage fashion, with the whole band together in one room, no headphones, no overdubbing.

“We recorded this album the way cats used to do back in the day,” he says. “The energy is there; the rawness is there. Coleman Hawkins said, ‘If you’re not making any mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough.’”