Hope Springs

I stumbled upon David Ecker's name a few months ago because of the Hip Joint newsletter, which the New York-based based pianist and composer shares with the world weekly. A great source of new music and industry content for any jazz head out there and one of the few emails I tend to look forward to in my inbox.

After a while, I started exploring his music and that coincided with the release of a track called "The Kraken Blinks". That's when I found out David is gearing up for his third LP Respite (Despite) which saw daylight just a few days ago.

David, who is a graduate of the Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program at Columbia University, crafts a contemporary homage to the classic jazz sound with a splash of modern. The album features some spacious, sweeping compositions that showcase both his technical prowess and artistic vision.

I highly recommend exploring the album as a unity as it almost sounds like a play with its build-ups and cooldowns and character development.

That being said, for today's feature I picked one of my favorite tracks - "Hope Springs" because of the beautiful improvisation towards the end and the interplay between epic and playful.