Mist
SSC1809 2026-06-26
Track List
Through a Mist Darkly - 5:16
A Piece of God - 3:52
Achlys - 8:39
Mist - 7:29
Paul Motian - 3:37
Loved - 8:49
Song of '22 - 4:20
Missed - 8:18
Musicians
Mat Maneri - viola
Lucian Ban - piano
John Hebert - bass
Randy Peterson - drums
As these challenging years creep by, it becomes necessary to look for hope on the horizon. Often, the picture of the future isn’t clear but remains obscured or hazy. But it is the belief in a brighter time ahead that helps imagine a better place through the mist. Violist, improviser, and composer Mat Maneri captures that feeling on his new recording, Mist, the final installment of a musical trilogy that he recorded with his quartet of longtime collaborators.
Maneri has become well known as a singular performer and creator on viola, forming intriguing partnerships with improvisers of all stripes. Over the past seven years, Maneri has focused on a quartet to present his music. The group includes instrumentalists that Maneri has played with for decades, including drummer Randy Peterson, bassist John Hébert, and pianist Lucian Ban.
The quartet initially formed as Maneri realized that he wanted to release a collection of music and to create a trilogy of albums with an overarching tone. The quartet released Dust (Sunnyside) in 2019, an ephemeral recording that meant to harness the spirit of quote end quote jazz. Ash (Sunnyside, 2023) deconstructed the initial approach and was envisioned as a memory experiment with grief.
As the quartet’s identity has matured, Maneri has leaned into the voices of his bandmates to inspire his work. The compositional voice of Lucian Ban has also been incorporated, as the pianist’s pieces constitute half of the pieces on Mist.
The music on Mist utilizes elements from the two previous albums to create a sort of resolution, leading from the haze of the Dust and Ash into a tentatively hopeful sense of ease on Mist. The recording was captured at Tedesco Studios in New Jersey on April 23, 2025.
The program begins with Maneri’s “Through a Mist Darkly,” the title taking a nod from Igmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly. The piece was the first music they recorded at the session, capturing a fresh and freely played piece moving from the dark into the mist. Ban’s “A Piece of God” is subtle but stately composition with gospel inflections, tones that have meant much to Maneri through his musical past with his parents.
Maneri’s “Achlys” takes its name from the Greek goddess who appears as a deadly mist. The piece presents an eerie, uncomfortable feel that is meant to represent the elements of the two previous recordings struggling to come together.
Ban wrote the title track, a hazily unfurling tone poem that truly encapsulates the essence of the project. It is followed by Ban’s “Paul Motian,” a piece that captures the rollicking feel of the legendary drummer’s compositional esthetic.
“Loved” is a heart-felt lament by Maneri that means to show that being loved is not about pouring out yourself but about receiving. The album’s take on Ban’s pandemic gestated “Song 22” is an engagingly dark piece capturing the spirit of that time. The recording concludes with Maneri’s “Missed,” the homonymous title highlighting the mysterious piece’s questionable sensation of missed resolutions.
Mat Maneri gratefully completes a musical journey that he began seven years ago with his trusted quartet on Mist. The album incorporates the essences of earlier recordings, Dust and Ash, to illuminate a light at the end of a tunnel and complete a trilogy.
