Usually where a song is premiered, we are introducing not just the song, but also the upcoming album that the song is a part of. Not this time: along with the song, we are introducing the artist herself.
Christina Galisatus is a jazz pianist who graduated with honors from Stanford University and toured Europe with Jon Faddis. In addition to leading her own band in the San Francisco Bay area, she’s participated in local groups there like the SFJAZZ Hip-Hop/Jazz Education Project and the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra. But now, Galisatus is in L.A. and getting herself established. Her first recording — to be released on May 1, 2020 — gets things off on the right foot.
Premiering above, her composition “Root” presents an artist with the discipline and detail orientation of classical music and the joyful surprise of jazz. I like how the song moves gracefully from the former style to the latter one, picking up members of Christina Galisatus’ sextet along the way. As her intial motif takes a turn, Michael Blasky’s tenor saxophone and Steven Lugerner’s bass clarinet gently nudge their way into the song, and the Dave Piltch (bass)/Tamir Barzilay (drums) rhythm section puts a mid-tempo groove underneath.
We reach the apex when guitarist extraordinaire Jeff Parker drops tasty leads just as “Root” brightens up and the performance is wrapped up by Piltch’s earthy bass turn.
Christina Galisatus’ “Root” is offered by Slow & Steady Records and can be had on Bandcamp.
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