Jazz

Catman Records · 2 September 2026

“Night Side Up” opens with Steve Gadd on brushes and Mike Catalano’s piano settled into five minutes of straight-ahead jazz with no intention of surprising anyone. The statement of intent arrives on the second track: “Bluesy”, seven fifty, with Randy Brecker muted and a long Eddie Gomez bass solo that is the best moment here.

The record splits down the middle between New York and Brazil. “Remember When (Marcio’s Theme)” is in 6/8 and written for the Brazilian trumpeter Marcio Montarroyos; “Bossa Avenue” is the first real samba, with Brecker switched to flugelhorn, Lou Marini on flute and Bob Mann’s nylon-string guitar. The loveliest stretch is the three minutes thirteen of Ivan Lins’s “Dois Córregos”, which Catalano takes alone, and the nine thirty-eight of “Lembra de Mim”, also Lins, in conversation with Gomez and nobody else.

The guest list works against him. Fourteen musicians pass through: two bassists, two drummers, three percussionists, trombone, trumpet, sax, guitar and two more keyboard players. The trio of the title barely exists as a trio, and eleven tracks with different line-ups make the album sound more like a gathering of sessions than a record thought through end to end. Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here” closes the record in three minutes twenty and adds a third direction on top of the other two.

This is the third part of a trilogy Catalano started with “A Rio Affair” (1989) and continued eighteen years later with “A Manhattan Affair” (2007). Catman Records put it out on 2 September.

Rating: 7/10

Text by Aina Torrents