WHAT NOW | DIEUPART'S SARABANDE FEATURED IN THE SYNDICATE

While much of What Now? is based on bluegrass and other folkinspirations,, “Dieupart’s Sarabande” starts with the famed French composer,  Charles Dieupart (1667-1740), building on a movement from his his Suite No. 6 in F Minor, and turning it into a platform for the  trio’s impressive jazz improv capabilities, showing just why the group chose the apt title for their debut album.

Discussing the unique nature of this track, Block notes, “this Baroque-style Sarabande is a hauntingly beautiful melody with an epic arc built into its simple form. My desire was to embrace the improvisational and ornamental freedom from performance practice of  the Baroque era by combining it with the trio’s harmonic flexibility as improvisers in order to treat Dieupart’s composition like a jazz chart. The trio really loves playing this piece, because we get to interact spontaneously through the improvisational solos, while also grounding ourselves when we return to Dieupart’s simple but stunning melody.”

What Now? has been a long time coming, while the connection between these three disparate musicians has been deepening for over a decade in various collaborations and configurations. The album features mostly original music, composed during the pandemic, oscillating between intimate meditations and burning improvisational virtuosity, that fuses elements of bluegrass, jazz and classical, creating something both familiar and entirely unique.