Angelica Sanchez's "Nighttime Creatures"

I first heard the Arizona-born pianist-composer Angelica Sanchez in 2013 on Twine Forest -- a duo (for Clean Feed) with Wadada Leo Smith, but one for which she wrote all the tunes. She also recorded solo and helmed a trio and quintet for that label. Since then, she's done much estimable work, most recently including a duo with Marilyn Crispell (2020's How To Turn the Moon for Pyroclastic), a new trio with Michael Formanek and Billy Hart (2022's Sparkle Beings for Sunnyside), and another with Tony Malaby and Tom Rainey (this year's Huapango for Rogueart). But her latest album, Nighttime Creatures, due out October 27 on Pyroclastic, is Something Else Entahrly: the recording debut of a nonet she's been working with for six years now.

The group is rich in horn polyphony, with a front line of three reeds (Michael Attias's alto, Chris Speed's tenor, and Ben Goldberg's Dolphic contra alto clarinet, pitched a fifth below the bass clarinet) and two brass (Kenny Warren's cornet and Thomas Heberer's quarter-tone trumpet, which can play the pitches between normal half-steps), powered by a rhythm section that includes Omar Tamez's guitar alongside John Hebert's bass, Sam Ospovat's drums, and the leader's piano. The way Sanchez employs the winds' expansive range gives her group's sound the fullness of a larger ensemble.

Sanchez is a venturesome composer who's unafraid to engage with tradition. The original pieces on Nighttime Creatures have evolved over years of revision, rehearsal, and performance, allowing the musicians to find space for their own voices within the structures Sanchez designed. Her obvious inspirations here are Ellington (whose "Lady of the Lavender Mist" gets a workout, highlighting its harmonic modernity) and Carla Bley (to whom "C.B. the Time Traveler" is dedicated). Indeed, the Old World tinge in "Astral Light of Alarid," dedicated to the composer's father, recalls Bley's "Reactionary Tango" from Social Studies. 

The compositions on Nighttime Creatures share a harmonic density, angular melodies, and spiky counterpoint that also evoke Monk, Andrew Hill, and on "Cloud House," Cecil Taylor -- whose "With (Exit)" Sanchez covered on Sparkle Beings. To these feedback-scorched ears, the title track -- inspired by nocturnal walks in the upstate New York woods where Sanchez now lives -- and the aforementioned "C.B. the Time Traveler" both resonate with the suspenseful aura of noir film soundtracks. Overall, this album represents a watershed moment for Sanchez as a composer and bandleader.