Gian Tornatore: Hearing Triangles

The long and circuitous sax/guitar unison passage that opens this track is just killer. It's spiky angles show up later in the composition in slightly different forms and lengths, giving the ear the sense of a slow unfolding. At around four minutes in, the band drops away as pianist Jon Anderson takes a solo that's full of arpeggios that bring to mind some of the piano work of Philip Glass. The delicious part was the tension created by the thought OK, just how the heck is he going to work his way back from here? Well, just after bassist Thomas Kneeland steps back completely into the darkness, the piano crystallizes and we're again circling a version of the main theme. From here the energy builds and build as parallel solos spin away from the newly constructed energy center.

Hearing Triangles is one of those compositions that seems to reveal new details on subsequent listens. That's always a good sign in my book.