Milagro

• Postcards.

Milagro is pianist Alan Pasqua's first album as a leader. The musical promise he displayed in The Tony Williams Lifetime, Santana, and George Russell's Living Time Orchestra has been fully realized on this inventive disc, aided and abetted by cohorts Holland, DeJohnette, and Brecker, and by five of New York's first-call brass and woodwind session players. Pasqua's playing is both melodic and hard-driving and, on this album, his gifts as an arranger are abundantly featured to great effect. "I've always felt that the instrumentation of a piano trio presents a perfect musical balance," says pianist/composer Alan Pasqua speaking of his 1994 debut album as a leader, "so in Milagro I wanted to use that as a common thread, adding to it with a tenor sax and with a larger horn section where it fit the individual pieces of music. Some of the compositions, such as "Acoma" and "A ing Child," are perfect as trios -- the piano, bass, and drums fill the whole canvas -- but in others the horns add a fuller, darker colored texture, giving the listeners a chance to hear a greater diversity of music." On Milagro, the core trio consists of Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette, as well as Pasqua. "Dave was the anchor of the trio," explains Pasqua, "while Jack was more of a free spirit, a color painter. Yet both of them allowed a lot of space -- space for me, space to draw the listeners into the music." They are joined by Michael Brecker on tenor sax on "Rio Grande," "The Law of Diminishing Returns," and "L'Inverno," and by five of New York's first-call brass and woodwind session players on "Rio Grande," "Twilight," "Milagro," and "Heartland." Together, they have created a disc that is both melodic and hard-driving, and that also, via the horn section, introduces Mr. Pasqua's profound arranging talents. " 'Milagro' means 'miracle,' " notes Pasqua, "and much of this disc is really about the miracle of life and our natural environment." He started working on the compositions about two to three years earlier, after forming a working trio in Los Angeles with drummer Peter Erskine and bassist John Patitucci. "I began to have a strong desire to write and play original compositions, not just jazz standards," he continues, "and their interpretations of my music gave me further energy to do more."