Witkowski’s varied musical training includes study with two Cuban jazz pianists, Chucho Valdez and Hilario Duran, and with Latin percussionist Bobby Sanabria. Her interest in Latin jazz actually preceded her studies with those masters and led her to play in a Chicago based salsa band for two years. Her openness to musical ideas seems to have been furthered by trips to Kenya, where she taught piano for some time, and South Africa. Her ease and comfort with different rhythms translates into a varied and exciting disc. Seven of the ten tunes on Having to Ask are rhythmically challenging and five are strongly Latin jazz influenced.

While Witkowski's piano style shows some influences ( I hear Bill Evans and Blue Note-era Chick Corea), she's not a slavish imitator.  She's absorbed her influences and built on them.  Her energetic, assured solos feel effortless and well developed regardless of the setting. Her rhythmically and harmonically varied compositions give her and reed player Jim Gailloreto, the other featured soloist on the disc, plenty of room to stretch out.

One of disc's best tunes, "Cooked Macaroni," has a slightly Monk-like feel. Witkowski, along with Tom Hipskind on drums and Rob Amster on bass, intros the song with a few skipping, angular lines and is joined after a few bars by Gailloreto on soprano sax.  Gailloreto plays a restatement of the main theme before branching off on a thoughtful solo that examines its odd beauty. Witkowski weaves together melodic variations on the opening with some nice blues turns and chord flourishes in a solo that pays homage to Monk without copying him. She and Gialloreto trade solos before the close, tossing exciting musical ideas back and forth.  

“Rains In Kenya,” the second track on the disc has an upbeat feel that, initially, doesn’t seem to hold much promise--it seems a bit too buoyant. During my first few listens to the track, Witkowski’s solo held my interest and hinted at greater possibilities within the song, so I was hesitant to write it off as merely pretty. Gailloreto’s solo also gave me a hunch that I might be unfair in my assessment --he travels through the chord changes to find some compelling and even urgent things to say. The fourth or fifth time I listened to the track I found myself listening closely to the chords Witkowski plays behind Gailloreto’s statement of the melody.  The changes give the song texture and hint at the complexity that will come in the improvisations.

There’s an overall positive feel to the disc that may cause listeners who insist on a dark or dissonant undercurrent in music to be a little hesitant. Witkowski has an ear for pleasing melodies and the disc proves that music written from that aesthetic point of view can yield exciting improvisation.  Her work is informed with wit and intelligence, but some may feel that her tendency towards accessible melodies runs counter to serious intent in art. Witkowski is obviously serious, but her message is one of affirmation and beauty.

A clue to her worldview is contained in this observation from the disc’s liner notes, “Religion plays a dominant role in Witkowski’s life, but not a dominating one.”  I haven’t a clue what the writer, jazz critic Neil Tesser, was trying to say in the last part of that statement. Witkowski herself is fairly straightforward in her profession of Christianity, although her expressions of faith are as cliché-free as her music. There’s no question, though, that her religious convictions are a key to understanding her music. She’s searching for beauty and hope, not sentiment. 

Witkowski’s unaccompanied interpretation of “Blame It On My Youth” is a wonderful example of her maturity and taste as a pianist. A pianist with her technical skills might be tempted to overwhelm the song with technique and a player of her age might approach it with too much reverence and play hesitantly.  Witkowski makes neither of those mistakes. She plays the song in a quiet manner but with great feeling. Another track that highlights Witkowski’s interpretive skills is “I’m All Smiles,” which features not only an expansive and well-constructed piano solo, but a georgeous, understated vocal.

The only track that falters is “Starting Over.” It’s not the song itself, which features some great scat singing from Witkowski and a witty piano solo.  The fault is in Gailloreto’s soprano playing; it comes dangerously close to smooth jazz. Gailloreto’s work throughout the disc is so good that his slip on this cut is surprising. His work on tenor (which he plays on two of the tracks) is particularly impressive and his soprano playing on three other tracks has some fine moments. The remaining players—Hipskind, Amster, Jonathan Paul on bass and Jose Gregorio on percussion--are all distinctive players who bring a lot to Ms. Witkowski’s songs.  Hipskind’s work is particularly noteworthy.        

The disc has a very lively, clean sound. The recording captures Hipskind’s understated drum and high-hat accents, among the great pleasures of the disc, but you don’t feel like you’re too close to the drum set. Both bassists are also well served by the recording, which places them precisely in the soundstage and brings out such details as the sound of strings vibrating against the fingerboard without being distracting. 

Ms. Witkowski recorded this disc in Chicago in 1997 and is at work on a new disc. Her home base is currently New York, but I hope that Tom Hipskind is the drummer for the new sessions; he’s someone I’d like to hear from a lot more. Since Witkowski has had a couple of years since Having To Ask to further develop her chops, her next disc should be even more confident and impressive. 

Joseph Taylor