Pianist Ben Winkelman’s sixth album as a leader, Heartbeat, features jazz heavyweights Gilad Hekselman, Matt Penman and Obed Calvaire, and comprises nine originals, four played by piano trio, five by quartet with guitar.

Written mostly in the early days of the Covid pandemic while awaiting the birth of his first child, the album draws inspiration from the anticipation of becoming a father, and the feeling of crisis and isolation at the start of the pandemic in New York.

Containing playful, intricate compositions as well as simple, lyrical ones, the album spans a range of moods and stylistic influences, with an emphasis on strong melodic lines, rhythmic exploration and group interplay. Having focused on the piano trio on his previous albums, this one marks a change with the addition of guitar on five tracks.

Heartbeat will be released on OA2 Records on September 15th, 2023.

1. Praise (5:24)
2. Fort Tilden (5:52)
3. Chilches (7:19)
4. Wandering (5:00)
5. Isolation (6:20)
6. The Wonky Waltz (5:57)
7. The Plague (5:55)
8. Heartbeat (5:23)
9. Machine (5:10)

The album opens on the languishing, yet at times mischievous beauty of Praise and the quietly melodic, Brazilian-influenced Fort Tilden (itself named after a beach in south Queens) and then brings us the playful swing of Chilches (named after a small seaside town outside Malaga, Spain), the sheer beauty of the stirring ballad Wandering and then comes the free-flowing, ornately sculpted Isolation, which is itself backed by the comes the jazz-classical-hued ambiance of The Wonky Waltz, the hauntingly impassioned ballad The Plague, the recording rounding out on the rhythmically-charged, titular Heartbeat, coming to a close on the cultured grooves found within Machine.

“I wrote most of these tunes in the first months of the Covid pandemic, that strange and anxious time when New York felt like the epicenter of the apocalypse and we were mostly confined to home, uncertain of the future, unsure even what we should be doing with our time,” Ben reflects. “For me it was also a hopeful and optimistic time as we waited for the arrival of our first child. This set of pieces takes inspiration from the anticipation of fatherhood and the feeling of crisis and isolation at the start of the pandemic.”

Notably, Winkelman altered his writing process during this period. “Whereas I usually compose at the piano with pencil and manuscript paper at hand, I instead made demo versions on the computer, which led me to try different sounds. Some pieces took a different direction because of the sound palette I was playing with, and I thought that some of them would come to life more with the addition of guitar, while others would work well as trio tunes. I’ve focused on the piano trio on my previous recordings, and while I still love this format, I felt it would be interesting to try mixing it up,” he explains.

The quartet tunes bookend Heartbeat, with three at the beginning, two at the end, and the four trio tunes grouped in the middle.

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