Yvonne Rogers: The Button Jar

PYROCLASTIC RECORDS (RELEASED MAY 8, 2026)

Up and coming pianist Yvonne Rogers remembers a jar of buttons her artist mother kept for various craft projects. As Rogers explains, the button jar felt like a jar of possibilities. “You could use it for any number of projects, but you had to know how to properly sew the button, so is became a balance of whimsical fun and meticulous craftsmanship.” The same can be said for Roger’s The Button Jar. Like the actual button jar, Rogers’ musical jar is filled with an array of styles, sizes, shapes and colors. The fourteen pieces are stitched together into a captivating, imaginative and delightful performance that adds a new twist to the solo piano vernacular. On the title track, Rogers gives stride piano a modern feel as her left hand sketches the foundation for her right hand to bring vitality to this contemporary sounding rag. She plays (literally) with the sound of the blues on “Scatter and Sort” and creates a call and response pattern between her two hands on the blues-infused “Monkey’s First.” There are shades of Keith Jarrett’s folk-like melodies in “Little Dance” and “The Craft Room.” Things get more abstract on the ballad-like “Cloud Chorale,” the freer sound of “Avid Risks” and the shifting rhythms and harmonies of “Mismatch.” Those more complex pieces are balanced with the pondering chords of “Thread the Needle,” the chime-like tolling of “Luster” and the introspective mood of “Exhale.” Rogers even taps into Monkisms on the boppish “Puzzle Building.” Despite the references to other piano players and styles, Rogers is unique in her approach, which is exploratory, complex, intricate and familiar, and all at the same time! Let’s hope there were other items in her mother’s studio that will lead to even more whimsically fun and meticulously crafted sessions like The Button Jar.

BOTTOM LINE: Having performed with artists such as Ralph Alessi, Ingrid Laubrock and Sara Serpa as well as appearing on “Elephant,” the newest recent from Adam O’Farrill, The Button Jar is Roger’s debut as a solo pianist. She brings a sense of adventure, playfulness and passion to 14 compact yet substantial tunes that display her compositional, improvisational and multidimensional approach to the art of jazz.