What holds Elastic Groove together is a post-bop sensibility that stays light on its feet, confident without ever pushing — a debut that already sounds very much like Colin Heshmat.
HMC Records
Colin Heshmat – Piano; Ryo Sasaki – Trumpet; Yuma Takagi – Bass; Ben Cliness – Drums
Another post bop quartet, another round of the same well-worn moves; not so with Elastic Groove, Colin Heshmat’s first official studio album. The lightness will grab you first — Heshmat’s piano lines are bouncy, easy on the ear, never straining to prove anything. Trumpeter Ryo Sasaki’s solos don’t blare, trying to knock you off your feet. The band knows the bop tradition, but they want it to sound like now rather than then.
“Sea Breeze” opens things at an easy pace, Sasaki’s tone is breathy, unforced, sliding over a laid-back Latin groove. Heshmat’s relaxed solo carries a hint of Horace Silver. This isn’t just a piano player fronting a rhythm section — Takagi’s bass steps into the light too, lyrical and full of woody resonance, before Sasaki comes back to close the tune.
“Centre Street Theme I” could be the first tune to ever be inspired by a stretch of jury duty. Anger may be part of that because the band shows some real muscle here. Heshmat hammers the lower register, Sasaki pushes harder, and the tempo races close to its edge without spilling over. Its companion, “Centre Street Theme II,” drains that tension back out — piano lines so lyrical they sound hummed before they hit the keys, trumpet notes sliding into each other, each one bleeding into the next.
For all his lightness, Heshmat’s playing turns out to hold more inside it than the opening tracks let on — he can turn sharp and percussive as easily as he lets a phrase breathe. “Ember” opens with Sasaki spitting out clipped triplets on trumpet, phrases so short and rapid they’re almost percussive. Heshmat throws the same shape right back at him on piano, left hand banging out chords underneath. Even Takagi picks up the pattern on bass. It’s Cliness who gets the last word, though, stepping out front with a solo built on sharp sticks and light cymbal work — concise, nothing wasted.
That same forcefulness carries into the title track, “Elastic Groove,” Heshmat’s right hand hammering out single notes against relaxed, easy left-hand chords, before Takagi comes forward again, picking fast and furious, and the band settles back into a hard-bop theme to close it out.
The standards show a different side of Heshmat — less about taking chances, more about finding fresh angles inside familiar material. “Just Friends” gets pushed faster than usual, Heshmat’s right hand syncopating the familiar melody until it swings somewhere new, while Sasaki keeps closer to the tune everyone already knows. “Blue Bossa” is the sly move — Dorham wrote it for trumpet, and here there’s no trumpet at all, just Heshmat’s piano carrying that horn line by itself, assured, unhurried, letting Takagi step forward for a lyrical solo before the melody returns. By “Cantaloupe Island,” the whole band is loose and funky, Sasaki sliding through that Blue Note groove with real feel, Heshmat’s phrases full of soul, Takagi lyrical again underneath before everyone regroups for the theme at the close.
What holds Elastic Groove together is a post-bop sensibility that stays light on its feet, confident without ever pushing — a debut that already sounds very much like Colin Heshmat.
