Pi Recordings: Pi25 
http://pirecordings.com/album/pi25

* Steve Lehman: alto saxophone
* Jonathan Finlayson: trumpet
* Chris Dingman: vibraphone
* Drew Gress: bass
* Tyshawn Sorey: drums

Homepage: 
http://www.stevelehman.com/

Review
~~~~~ 
http://www.allmusic.com/album/on-meaning-r1209518
by Thom Jurek
Saxophonist and composer Steve Lehman is one of those new breeds of contemporary
musicians. As a jazzman he's played with everyone from Vijay Iyer to Dave
Burell. He's studied with both Jackie McLean and Anthony Braxton, and recorded a
handful of records as a leader or co-leader; he is a Fulbright scholar and has
taught in Paris. His album titles -- like this one -- sound like the titles of
doctoral dissertations: Demian as a Posthuman, anyone? All of that said, Lehman
could throw down on the horn and write some exciting music for a band that makes
it spark and fire. Chris Dingman on vibes, Drew Gress on bass, drummer Tyshawn
Sorey (who nails all kinds of breakbeats in this set), and trumpeter Jonathan
Finlayson work with Lehman's alto in scattering post-bop notions off a wall
filled with tough new vanguard tricks, but which are all kept in tight rein by
the compositions themselves. While these tunes don't exactly sing, they can and
do swing, in places. In others they scatter, punch, kick, and dart here and
there at a moment's notice, sometimes quicker, sometimes slower. Themes like
that of the title track juxtapose thematic constructions and taut melodic
invention along several planes at once in a metonymic manner -- it's not a long,
single line in linear horizontal fashion, but in linear fashion, period, using
all the referents of what came before for what comes after. The vibes add both
color and punch the rhythm section, as well as act as a melodic extension of
three different themes put into play by Lehman and Finlayson. "Open Music,"
introduced by some stellar snare work by Sorey and Finlayson, creates a series
of contrapuntal lines that Gress comes in to play between as a balancing
act. The horns don't enter for almost a minute and then scalar counterpoint in
call and response becomes the beginning of a linguistic exercise that actually
spits fire, an uneasy tension and mild dissonance that leads into the frame of a
tune that gets worked out in the spaces between the various lyric themes being
stated. Quite impressive, and Sorey is all killer on the kit, keeping it not
only moving, but flowing, jumping off, coming back, and then further pushing
Finlayson to put more and more chime on that vibe.

Other tracks, such as "Check This Out," have deep, furrowed knotty lines for the
front line to play, with a kind of opaque harmonic terrain employed by
Finlayson. Gress takes all this in stride and he and Sorey keep it pushing,
making sure this somewhat academic music doesn't get bogged down in its
sophistication and braininess. As the improvisation makes clear here, and
virtually everywhere else on this fine album, the language of jazz and its
tradition is the great equalizer. Lehman chooses to use it in the compositions
themselves, sure, but more than this the players are all free to use and
reference all parts of it; they speak to one another through history, space, and
time as well as in the immediacy of dynamic and often frenetic communication. On
Meaning is enjoyable on a purely physical level for the engagement of the
players and the action, of which there is plenty, but the sense of sheer
musicality at work here is often breathtaking. Perhaps the biggest plus for the
listener is that while the intellectual and technical acumen here is rigorously
high, the way this set comes off is immediate, live, as if the studio weren't
even part of the proceedings.