Lost Time

Matthew Fries – piano
John Hébert – bass
Keith Hall – drums

Lost Time varies widely in color and mood even as it documents a cohesive aesthetic, animated by the deep lyricism and swing of Fries’ writing. Threading together formative influences in his own inimitable voice, Fries contemplates life at a time when tragic loss and long-sought artistic clarity and progress exist side by side.

“There are lots of ways time can be lost,” says Fries, reflecting on Lost Time and the achingly beautiful, Keith Jarrett-influenced ballad that is its title track. There is of course the painful sense of missing out, of isolation from family — all the travails brought on by the pandemic, when most of these pieces were written, including the elegant “Continuum” and the alert swing vehicle “Quarantine.” There’s also the sense, Fries adds, “of time seeming to stop, or becoming irrelevant because of what is happening around you. Time kind of became irrelevant, got lost or ended for many of us during 2020.” And yet the nourishing work of creativity went on, new connections were forged, and the soaring, unpredictable arc of Lost Time is Fries’ way of bearing witness to that.

Produced by Matthew Fries
Session produced by Andrew Rathbun
Recorded July 21, 2021 at Transient Sound, Chicago by Vijay Tellis-Nayak
Mixed by George Petit
Mastered by Oscar Zambrano (Zampol Productions)
Vinyl by Gotta Groove Records