Fabian Almazan began creating some buzz with his sparkling piano chops in trumpeter Terence Blanchard's group on Choices (Concord Music Group, 2009). Originally from Havana, Cuba, Almazan is not only one of the young rising stars in New York, but is also classically trained and has received a number of awards as a composer in film, chamber and orchestral projects. Many of these disciplines come into play on this auspicious debut, which includes Almazan's equally convincing trio with bassist Linda Oh and drummer Henry Cole, and a string quartet on two tracks. This is evident in Alamzan's emotive interpretation of Dmitri Shostakovich's "String Quartet No.10 Opus 118." While maintaining the austere beauty of the Russian composer's work, the music is enhanced with electronic colorations—splices of noise and sound effects that build to a breaking point at midpoint, right before the string quartet quietly resumes the theme. If Shostakovich's third...