Album Review: Vulnerability from Eric Bell

Album:  Vulnerability
Artist:  Eric Bell
Label:  Self-Released
Website:  https://ericbellmusic.com

Vulnerability, the debut recording from pianist-composer Eric Bell is a compilation of multi-faceted soundscapes adorned in reverb guitar, jaunty keys and sleek saxophone toots.  Accompanying Bell are bass player Cole Sainburg, drummer Nico Vasquez, guitarist Dean Anbar, and tenor saxophonist Eric Hirschhorn.

"Start" opens the disc with glittery synth effects creating a bevy of cinematic raptures.  A choreography is formed with Anbar's guitar riffs supporting Bell's repeated ostinatos played on piano and Hammond organ.  Bell follows up with "The Way You Look," quilted in percussive beats kneaded by improvised doodles on the saxophone, seguing into glistening keys.

Bell's interpretation of Wayne Shorter's "Witch Hunt" is sheath in a cascade of jaunty keys and bopping beats.  The musicians produce an interactive environment as one musician acts like a catalyst with the others responding, differing the tempo at every turn of the score's progression.  Staccato beats are paired with pumping keys along "Hans," dedicated to the great film composer Hans Zimmer, with an additional nod to the Israeli bassist Avishai Cohen.

"Fighting the Sun" is bathed in echoey effects lanced by soaring cymbal strikes, as though the musicians adventure into a subliminal plane.  Bell describes in the press release, the tune portrays, "The tension between the tempo and the intense music played against it represents the struggle between the forces of nature and humanity."

The soft sonorous of Bell's keys produce a lamenting mood through the title track, leaping into the straight-ahead jazz romp "Beautiful Love" moored by jumping beats and shuffling keys as the frenzied saxophone swirls accelerate the energy level.  The disc closes with "I Didn't Need You Anyways," loaded in impromptu thrusts, as a surge of bopping keys and pulsating drumbeats build into a playful atmosphere.

Having been influenced by his experiences playing gospel, jazz, blues, and swing, Eric Bell crosses tradition with improvisation, paving his own destination and honing a niche for his body of work.  His debut disc as a leader shows his penchant for originality while keeping true to the idioms of bop and swing.

Musicians:
Eric Bell - piano
Cole Sainburg - bass
Nico Vasquez - drums
Dean Anbar - guitar
Eric Hirschhorn - tenor saxophone