Marta Sánchez Trio

Marta Sánchez Trio: “Perpetual Void”

(ES, US)

In 2011 pianist Marta Sánchez moved from Spain to New York on a Fulbright Scholarship to study jazz at New York University. She already had a couple of albums, cut in her native Madrid, and in the years since she has fully integrated herself in the bustling scene, steadily emerging as one of the city’s best mainstream pianists. Early on she found common cause with other emigres to the city, such as Frenchman Jérôme Sabbagh and Cuban Román Filiú on reeds, but in recent years others have come calling, including the veteran reedist David Murray who enlisted Sánchez for his acclaimed new quartet which performs at Jazzfest Berlin on Friday night.

Last year Sánchez delivered her strongest outing yet with a new trio on “Perpetual Void”. The rhythm section, with Chris Tordini on bass and Savannah Harris behind the drums, pushes the pianist into new directions, expertly balancing the leader’s more lyric qualities with a shape-shifting polyrhythmic edge. Real life experiences frequently impact the pianist’s handsome compositions, and as the title of the new album suggests, her latest batch of tunes was informed by the loss of her mother in 2020, which induced several years of debilitating insomnia. The experience led to her most kinetic, multivalent writing yet. For this evening’s performance Matt Penman is on bass.