Paul Hecht’s Pyrography

Hailing from Chicago, Pyrography is led by pianist/keyboardist Paul Hecht, who came of age as an improvising musician in Chicago with a vital generation of performers including Greg Ward, Matt Ulery, Quin Kirchner, and particularly Rob Clearfield. He now teaches eclectic classes in music and culture at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and performs regularly in venues throughout the Midwest. The band also includes Gustavo Cortiñas, a drummer and composer originally from Mexico who has distinguished himself with a series of projects of increasing ambition and scope, including his own record label, Desafío Candente. James Davis on trumpet is a longtime fixture of the Chicago scene, a notable composer and bandleader, and a valued member of many important Chicago ensembles. Ben Dillinger is one of the most sought-after young bass players in the city, equally at home in traditional jazz and avant-garde projects.

This band and their debut album—out April 4—take their name from the ancient art of writing or drawing with heat on wood, writing as singeing or controlled burning, and from a poem of the same title by John Ashbery, from which we hear this:

And not just the major events but the whole incredible
Mass of everything happening simultaneously and pairing off,
Channeling itself into history, will unroll
As carefully and as casually as a conversation in the next room

As interested in exploiting throwaway musical objects as unabashedly romantic, camp-adjacent flights of fancy and romps, Pyrography shows Hecht and his Chicago quartet drawing on their wide musical histories to create music both tightly integrated and profoundly restless.