Pianist Zachary Bartholomew's "BALANCING ACT"

DR. ZACHARY BARTHOLOMEW, one of Florida’s most sought-after jazz pianists and a music professor at Florida Memorial University, is releasing his debut album, BALANCING ACT. The album features ten original Bartholomew compositions, in each of which he sought to achieve an elusive balancing act between group cohesion and the individual inventiveness of his fellow players: MARTY QUINN of the contemporary bass faculty at the University of Miami; RODOLFO ZUNIGA, professor of jazz drumming at California State University, Fullerton; saxophonist DAVID FERNANDEZ of the music faculty at Florida International University; and trumpeter BENNY BENACK III, a New York-based jazz artist who recently appeared in both the best trumpet and best vocalist categories of Downbeat Magazine’s Rising Stars Critics Poll. Collectively, Quinn, Zuniga, Fernandez, and Benack have performed with a veritable who’s who of jazz luminaries, including Joe Henderson, Paquito D’Rivera, Randy Brecker, Benny Golson, Ira Sullivan, Christian McBride, and Emmet Cohen.

Jazz is usually associated with urban environments, but Bartholomew first encountered and fell in love with the music in a very different setting. He was born and raised on the edge of Florida’s Apalachicola National Forest in the one-stop-sign town of Sopchoppy, home of the annual Worm Grunting Festival. Though small and rural, Sopchoppy attracted its share of artistic types and became an island of creativity in an otherwise very conservative county. It even had its own recording studio.

Bartholomew began his piano studies at age 11 and went on to earn a master’s degree and then a Ph.D. in Studio Music and Jazz Instrumental Performance from the University of Miami’s prestigious Frost School of Music. He held teaching positions at several South Florida colleges before securing his present position at Florida Memorial. He has headlined at some of the top jazz venues and performing arts centers in the country; performed at national and international jazz festivals including Jacksonville, St. Petersburg, Monterey, Jalisco, and Festival Miami; and appeared with jazz greats such as Sean Jones, Victor Goines, Dave Holland, David Liebman, Ira Sullivan, and Carmen Bradford. He is regularly featured as a pianist with professional organizations including the Sarasota Pops Orchestra, Naples Philharmonic, Lake Wales Jazz Connection, and Gulf Coast Jazz Collective, and is a Resident Artist at Arts Bonita in Bonita Springs, Florida, where he presents a monthly jazz concert series featuring musicians from around the country.

The music on BALANCING ACT is innovative and eclectic, its performances as virtuosic as they are soulful. From the quirky post-bop witticisms of the opening track, “Crazy Socks,” to the somber “Time Apart,” a moving homage to loved ones no longer with us, Bartholomew and company cover the gamut of contemporary jazz styles and modes of expression. “Sunny Days Driven By” captures the energy and exhilaration of a car speeding down the highway with its propulsive piano part and galvanic drumming. “Bring the Noise” draws from the deep well of Afro-Cuban rhythms and features a scintillating trumpet solo from Benack. “Hobo’s Lullaby” builds on the same theme, transforming a standard Afro-Cuban bell pattern into an asymmetrical five-beat bass line. “I’ve always had a romantic idea of what it would be like to hop a freight train on a cross-country journey,” says Bartholomew. “I wrote the steady and rhythmic bass line of Hobo’s Lullaby to sound like the motion of a locomotive.”

On the title track, “Balancing Act,” the full band launches from earth in a flurry of high energy only to return to ground in a state of calm. A duality of balanced opposites—opposing forces of nature—quite literally hangs in the balance here. “The Long and Winding Road” (not to be confused with its Beatles namesake) is a tone poem contrasting joy and sadness. It evokes the life of a young man whose life is full of happiness until it is suddenly transformed by devastating tragedy. The cheerful soprano saxophone and dark-hued piano become leitmotifs of the young man’s changing fortunes. 

The album’s remaining three tracks continue its eclectic musical journey. “Mirror Image” plays with permutations and combinations of a rhythmic motif that comes to be transformed into a rhythmic mirror of itself. “There and Back Again” revels in Bartholomew’s love of fantasy as it traces the journey of a naïve neophyte into a dangerous world of magical adventure. In “Midnight Nefarity,” Bartholomew offers a nostalgic, quasi-autobiographical musical reflection on adolescence, replete with all the mischief and remorse of that awkward time of life. 

All in all, BALANCING ACT is a stunning album debut in which Zachary Bartholomew displays exemplary skills as a pianist, broad creative range as a composer, and deft ability as a bandleader. The all-star cast of musicians he has assembled here is top-notch, demonstrating from start to finish the kind of moxie and daring that contemporary jazz demands while always remaining sensitive to one another and deferential to the music itself. BALANCING ACT delivers on its promise of deep ensemble synergy and bold individuality. This act is on its way to somewhere special.

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BALANCING ACT will be available digitally on selected platforms on August 2, 2024. Physical copies will be available at www.zacharybartholomew.com and on Bandcamp.

WATCH EPK: BALANCING ACT

WATCH: Balancing Act Live at Timicua Arts Foundation

Balancing Act CD Release Tour Dates:

Tue, Jul 30 @ 7:30PM, Vino Beano Tallahassee

Sat, Sep 28 @ 7:30PM, Timucua Arts Foundation Orlando, FL

Online:

Website: www.zacharybartholomew.com

Instagram: @zachbartholomewmusic

Facebook: facebook.com/zbjazz

YouTube: youtube.com/zachbartholomew