There's Beauty Enough in Being Here, by Noam Lemish
A pianist/bandleader born in the U.S., raised in Israel, residing in Canada and inspired by the work of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, Noam Lemish conflates jazz flexibility with classical discipline, taking side routes into Himalayan and Middle Eastern motifs.
And it's to the credit of Noam Lemish and his accompanying trio that There Is Beauty Enough in Being Here doesn't sound stuffy as those foregoing elements might make it. The culminative effect of the set's nine pieces is to reflect upon the spiritual essence of even life's most ordinary aspects in compositions both engaging and meditative. It all recalls a more bop- or cool jazz-oriented Joe Sample. But like that fusion maestro, Lemish fuses myriad musical elements, but of different sorts.
Though drummer Nick Fraser and upright bassist Andrew Downing contribute their fair shares to the motoric gait of Lemish's compositions, the keyboardist's not so secret weapon is multi-instrumentalist Sundar Viswanathan's contributions on alto and soprano saxophones and bansuri, a subcontinental Asian slide flute. And just as Lemish conflates genres to enthralling effect, Pessoa's verse isn't the sole thematic grist to inspire Beauty. The Hebrew calendar, travels to Copenhagen and San Francisco, and his own transcultural lived experience inform the inquisitive joy in his work. This set is enough to have one wondering whose literature Lemish might read next to instigate another album as captivating as this one.
