Ricardo Grilli’s fascination with movement through time and space inspires 1962, the guitarist’s second album for the Brooklyn label, Tone Rogue Records. On his first, 1954, he contemplated the year of his father’s birth, when bebop, mind-bending and visionary, seemed to invoke the technological advancements of the coming Space Age. The current album is the philosophical sequel to 1954 and commemorates his mother’s birth year; by then bop had begun to decline in popularity, and the NASA space program was just ramping up.
What to make of this? Not what you’d expect. Instead of relying on the usual electronic tropes intended to conjure images of an alternative cosmic world, Grilli grounds the new album in modern bop ideas. Note on “E.R.P.”—his nod to both pianist Bud Powell and saxophonist Wayne Shorter—the jagged melodies, doubled in the guitar and sax (with tenor player Mark Turner), and the attention paid the ride cymbal (Erick Harland on drums). Or how on “Signs (Blues for Peter Bernstein)” pianist Kevin Hays accentuates his straight-ahead comping with harmonically displaced, arpeggiated soloing. Throughout the album, Grilli’s next-generation take on these canonical devices continues the bop discussion rather than diverts it.
Grilli was born and raised in Brazil, steeped in its rhythmic lyricism—this influence makes its way into 1962, too. As on “Lunático,” where the subtle Afro-Brazilian feel presses against bassist Joe Martin’s fluidly melodic solo, and on the slow, infectious samba, “Coyote,” where Grilli’s clean, understated fret work speaks as much to his comfort in riding the pulse as to his fluency in complex harmonic idioms. The simplest statement on the album, though, is the one that pulls it all together: the opening track, “1954-1962.” A reverberating solo guitar line, a second shy of two minutes in length, and the first of many stirring moments on this record.
1962: 1954-1962; Mars; Coyote; Signs (Blues for Peter Bernstein); E.R.P.; The Sea and the Night; Lunático; 183 W 10th St.; Virgo (Oliver’s Song); Voyager. (1:06:31)
Personnel: Ricardo Grilli, guitar; Mark Turner, tenor saxophone; Kevin Hays, piano; Joe Martin, bass; Erick Harland, drums.
(Reprinted from the June 2020 issue of Downbeat magazine)