It’s a record that understands strength doesn’t always come from standing alone. Sometimes it comes from reaching sideways—underground, unseen—and helping someone else stand tall.
Artists Recording Collective
Sumi Tonooka – piano; Gregg August – bass; Johnathan Blake – drums; Erica Lindsay – tenor saxophone; Samantha Boshnack – trumpet; Michael Ventoso – trombone; Salim Washington – tenor sax, bass clarinet, and flute
Pianist and composer Sumi Tonooka has always listened for what others might miss. On UNDER THE SURFACE, she digs into deeper connections—musical, emotional, even ecological. The album was inspired by the hidden root systems that let trees share resources and sustain each other. In much the same way, Tonooka’s extended suite reflects how music can grow through quiet, often unseen forms of connection.
The album brings together two key strands of Tonooka’s work: her lyrical, quietly adventurous piano trio, and the orchestrational strength she’s developed over the years—most notably through the Alchemy Sound Project, a long-running composer collective she co-founded. Blending jazz improvisation with the structure and scope of chamber music, the group—active since 2018—has become an important outlet for Tonooka’s large-ensemble writing. The result here is thoughtful and richly layered, shaped by a deep sense of musical community.
Built on the fierce, flexible interplay of Tonooka’s core trio—featuring longtime collaborator Gregg August on bass and the always-commanding Johnathan Blake on drums—UNDER THE SURFACE doesn’t so much narrate its botanical metaphor as embody it. The music sprouts, tangles, supports, and evolves. And in Blake’s case, the roots go deep. “For 30-plus years I played with his father, the great jazz violinist John Blake, and I knew Johnathan as a boy,” Tonooka says. “Now he’s one of the premier drummers of his generation and firmly holds the baton—or mycorrhizal energy—to pass off to the next generations.”
Blake’s drums intro the opening track, ‘Points of Departure,’ kicking the trio into full flight. Tonooka’s piano slides in with Monk-like, repeated angular phrases—sharp, deliberate, and playful—while the bass anchors the scene with heavy, melodic lines that keep the momentum going. Both of Tonooka’s hands are busy: the right dancing with little flourishes and quick single-note runs, the left delivering powerful chord punches. It’s tight, responsive playing—musicians listening, reacting, and pushing each other forward without missing a beat.
When the horns enter—Erica Lindsay’s tenor sax, Samantha Boshnack’s trumpet, Michael Ventoso’s trombone, and Salim Washington’s array of winds—the trio’s foundation becomes fertile soil for larger growth. Ventoso’s wah-wah intro on “Saveur” nods to early Ellington sidemen like Bubber Miley and Tricky Sam Nanton, evoking that raw, vocal quality they mastered. The full ensemble swings with tightly layered precision, but there’s still plenty of room for the music to stretch out and breathe.
The centerpiece, ‘Interval Haiku,’ opens with a jagged yet strangely serene fanfare—bass clarinet out front with a big, woody tone, while the horns play in tight unison above a churning rhythm section. Tonooka’s piano lines unspool—melodic, lyrical, and just off-kilter enough to keep you guessing. Boshnack’s trumpet solo is a standout—chiseled, searching, and emotionally wide open. Erica Lindsay’s tenor solo rides the shape of the melody with an easy, warm tone as the ensemble locks into a pattern of pulsing, repeated figures. Toward the end, the bass switches to bow, the drums pull back, and the piece fades gently, with the horns returning one last time to close it out.
Other moments reveal the suite’s emotional range. Tear Bright slows things down into a lush ballad, with Tonooka setting the mood on piano—graceful, a little romantic—before the horns come in together, warm and tightly voiced. Washington’s bass clarinet returns here, perfectly placed: deep, expressive, and seemingly made for ballads. Mother Tongue is the suite’s tangle—a dense weave of flute, trombone, and Latin-inflected bass lines, all jostling for space and air. Blake’s drumming is ecstatically precise, propelling the chaos with joy. Tonooka isn’t afraid to let the music feel a little scattered—that tension and complexity are part of the point.
Her playing often features tricky chord substitutions and pentatonic color. ‘For Stanley’ is her love letter to the late Stanley Cowell—her mentor, and one of jazz’s most quietly visionary pianists. The tune is disarmingly simple, a moment of reflection amid the complexity. The title track, ‘Under the Surface,’ wraps things up with humor and joy—a brisk closer that even sneaks in a sly quote from ‘The Girl from Ipanema.’
If you know Tonooka’s backstory, the pieces fall into place. A Philly native, she studied with Stanley Cowell, paid her dues with Philly Joe Jones, Kenny Burrell, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Benny Golson, and others, and later explored orchestral writing through the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute. She’s always written music with a story—whether scoring documentaries, honoring family history, or, in this case, letting trees teach us how to live.
Under the Surface is one of Tonooka’s most complete statements to date. It sounds like what it took to make it: decades of listening, experimenting, collaborating, and growing in unlikely places. It’s a record that understands strength doesn’t always come from standing alone. Sometimes it comes from reaching sideways—underground, unseen—and helping someone else stand tall.
“This record is a good representation of a lot of what I’ve learned in the past 10 years, exploring orchestration and 20th-century music,” Tonooka says. But it’s also more than that. It reflects a different kind of social vision—a “wood wide web” that borrows from the mycorrhizal networks beneath forests and applies the same logic to how we live and create together. “It turns the notion of survival of the fittest on its head,” she says, “to mean that the strong reach out to help the weak and the damaged, fostering a collective cooperation and supporting the whole. In other words, humans need each other and must work together to survive and thrive.
