Waldron's Left Hand Carries the Weight
The left hand carries the theme while the right hammers away in counter-tempo—Waldron at his most structured and restless.
Up Popped the Devil arrived quietly on the Enja label, a European jazz imprint willing to document the work of American musicians who had fallen outside the mainstream. Mal Waldron was not a name that moved records in 1973, and this album did not reverse that. It found its audience slowly, among listeners attuned to the particular severity of his approach—musicians and collectors who understood that Waldron's music worked differently than most piano trios.
Bob Rusch, reviewing for AllMusic, identified what makes this record matter: Waldron's left hand usually carries the theme at one repetitious tempo while the right hand hammers away in juxtaposition, usually faster. This is not elegant. It is deliberate confrontation within the trio format. The music broods. It refuses to settle into swing comfort. Instead, Waldron establishes a gravitational pull in the bass and lets tension accumulate between hands, building something closer to classical counterpoint than to the smooth interplay most listeners expect from jazz piano.
This is not Waldron's entry point—start with Impressions (1962) if you want his music more immediately welcoming. Up Popped the Devil belongs to listeners ready for something less generous, less interested in making friends with the audience. It rewards that readiness, especially for those drawn to the strange architecture of his compositional thinking and his refusal to play the instrument in any obvious way.
Who's playing
Where next?
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
