March 2009

Lee Shaw Trio
Live in Graz
ARC - Artists Recording Collective

By Bill Milkowski

At age 82, pianist Lee Shaw is one of the unsung elders of jazz. Her highly interactive trio of bassist Rich Syracuse and drummer Jeff Siegel is captured live at the Cafe Stockwerk in Graz, Austria. Shaw is in fine form here, swinging with verve on Dr. Billy Taylor’s “Easy Walker,” settling into an easy, elegant mode on Victor Young’s “Street of Dreams,” getting feisty on her own “Foots” or turning in a soulful interpretation of Ahmad Jamal’s “Night Mist.” Her harmonic language is expansive, her time impeccable, her touch divine. Lee’s fascinating life story, from her Birdland days to the present, is revealed in the accompanying DVD.