4 If you have read about Ran Blake but do not know his music, Driftwoods is a good place to discover him. In contrast to Blake’s previous recording, All That is Tied (which was his 35th and which contained his own jagged, austere compositions), Driftwoods “salutes his favorite singers.” When he plays solo piano versions of songs like “Unforgettable” and “You Are My Sunshine,” his radicalism becomes more approachable. He still sounds jagged and austere, but there is satisfaction and even amusement in knowing you are never going to hear quirkier interpretations of “Dancing in The Dark” and “I Loves You, Porgy.” Blake sculpts them with painfully slow deliberation, in contours distorted by repositioned accents and incongruous chords and sequences and “wrong” notes that clang and linger, sustain pedal down. Film noir has been a deep influence on Blake’s life and art. Driftwoods, with the exception of Quincy Jones’ “Pawnbroker,” presents no explicit examples of film noir music, yet it is profoundly cinematic. Even the Hank Williams tribute, “Lost Highway,” needs a film: Desolate, isolated notes hang in the air, ominous silences between them. Blake thinks, not in linear narrative, but in slow pans, in edits that juxtapose images. Through halting existential choices, Blake translates his dark inner movie into music. true 209 2009-04-20T14:39:51-04:00 false 24660 174 true 61 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

If you have read about Ran Blake but do not know his music, Driftwoods is a good place to discover him. In contrast to Blake’s previous recording, All That is Tied (which was his 35th and which contained his own jagged, austere compositions), Driftwoods “salutes his favorite singers.” When he plays solo piano versions of songs like “Unforgettable” and “You Are My Sunshine,” his radicalism becomes more approachable. He still sounds jagged and austere, but there is satisfaction and even amusement in knowing you are never going to hear quirkier interpretations of “Dancing in The Dark” and “I Loves You, Porgy.” Blake sculpts them with painfully slow deliberation, in contours distorted by repositioned accents and incongruous chords and sequences and “wrong” notes that clang and linger, sustain pedal down. Film noir has been a deep influence on Blake’s life and art. Driftwoods, with the exception of Quincy Jones’ “Pawnbroker,” presents no explicit examples of film noir music, yet it is profoundly cinematic. Even the Hank Williams tribute, “Lost Highway,” needs a film: Desolate, isolated notes hang in the air, ominous silences between them. Blake thinks, not in linear narrative, but in slow pans, in edits that juxtapose images. Through halting existential choices, Blake translates his dark inner movie into music.

2009-04-23T11:46:20-04:00

4 Marc Copland is a player you either like or you don’t. Some of his fellow jazz pianists find him effete. His time is not his strong suit, and he is not “pianistic.” In fact, Copland started as a saxophonist and came late to the piano. This reviewer can listen to him all night. For Copland the piano is a means to evoke moodscapes, self-contained atmospheres of crystalline lyricism. But his version of romantic impressionism is not soft. His colors are pastel yet complex, and his harmonies are ambiguous. The third volume of New York Trio Recordings features Drew Gress and Bill Stewart, a bassist and drummer deeply in touch with Copland’s free poetic process. Even with different personnel on the first two CDs (Gary Peacock and Paul Motian), the series feels like a single arc. Yet certain elements distinguish Night Whispers. There are three concise solo piano meditations on Johnny Mandel’s “Emily.” They are dissimilar yet illuminate in glimpses the same fragile, hovering melody, which becomes the album’s recurrent motif. Gress’ “Like It Never Was” contains distant allusions to “Emily.” It connects to Copland’s “The Bell Tolls” and Jule Styne’s “I Fall In Love Too Easily” because they all feel like variants of the same emotion, previously private, now shared. true 209 2009-04-20T14:40:36-04:00 false 24661 174 true 61 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

Moodscapes, self-contained atmospheres of crystalline lyricism

2009-05-13T09:52:21-04:00

4 Dave Frank taught for 17 years at Berklee and now directs the Dave Frank School of Jazz in Manhattan. His new album can be admired as a dissertation on the largest issue facing the solo jazz pianist, which is how the left hand deals with the absence of a bassist. Frank’s left hand is uncommonly adept, and he meets the challenge with a large variety of ostinatos and half-time bass lines and octave melodies and atypical pedal points, and sometimes even a powerful 4/4 walk and traditional comping chords. But such characterizations miss the spontaneity and freshness that Frank brings to this project. His angle on every song here is unexpected and revealing. He slows “Without A Song” into a rapt, quintessential two-minute miniature. “Here’s That Rainy Day” is syncopated almost beyond recognition by its teetering bass line. “A Night In Tunisia” hurtles forward with as much force as any quintet ever gave it, but curls back on itself with a freedom only available to the solo pianist. Frank also writes imaginative songs. “Snow Falls On 5th Ave.” is vividly visual. true 209 2009-04-20T14:41:40-04:00 false 24662 174 true 61 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

Dave Frank taught for 17 years at Berklee and now directs the Dave Frank School of Jazz in Manhattan. His new album can be admired as a dissertation on the largest issue facing the solo jazz pianist, which is how the left hand deals with the absence of a bassist. Frank’s left hand is uncommonly adept, and he meets the challenge with a large variety of ostinatos and half-time bass lines and octave melodies and atypical pedal points, and sometimes even a powerful 4/4 walk and traditional comping chords. But such characterizations miss the spontaneity and freshness that Frank brings to this project. His angle on every song here is unexpected and revealing. He slows “Without A Song” into a rapt, quintessential two-minute miniature. “Here’s That Rainy Day” is syncopated almost beyond recognition by its teetering bass line. “A Night In Tunisia” hurtles forward with as much force as any quintet ever gave it, but curls back on itself with a freedom only available to the solo pianist. Frank also writes imaginative songs. “Snow Falls On 5th Ave.” is vividly visual.

2009-04-23T11:45:46-04:00

4 This recording describes itself as “a concept album that features soulful, groove-heavy jazz interpretations of popular compositions not normally associated with the jazz genre.” It is a curious description, given that several of the tunes here are in fact staples of the jazz genre. The versions of these songs performed by pianist Frank Hailey, bassist Eric Zukoski and drummer Michael Hailey add little to the archives. Whereas Charles Lloyd can play the melody of “Georgia on My Mind” and break your heart, and Stanley Jordan and Ann Dyer have taken fascinating liberties with “Eleanor Rigby,” and at least 50 jazz musicians have created interesting personal interpretations of Jobim’s “Wave,” the Hailey-Zukoski trio turns them into jazz elevator music. Every tune is reduced to a down-the-middle, amiably bouncing lowest common denominator. According to its press release, An Old Sweet Song seeks to be “an album with broad appeal to not just jazzbos, but fans of popular music of all styles.” Fair enough. But jazzbos beware. true 209 2009-04-20T14:42:28-04:00 false 24663 174 true 61 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

This recording describes itself as “a concept album that features soulful, groove-heavy jazz interpretations of popular compositions not normally associated with the jazz genre.” It is a curious description, given that several of the tunes here are in fact staples of the jazz genre. The versions of these songs performed by pianist Frank Hailey, bassist Eric Zukoski and drummer Michael Hailey add little to the archives. Whereas Charles Lloyd can play the melody of “Georgia on My Mind” and break your heart, and Stanley Jordan and Ann Dyer have taken fascinating liberties with “Eleanor Rigby,” and at least 50 jazz musicians have created interesting personal interpretations of Jobim’s “Wave,” the Hailey-Zukoski trio turns them into jazz elevator music. Every tune is reduced to a down-the-middle, amiably bouncing lowest common denominator. According to its press release, An Old Sweet Song seeks to be “an album with broad appeal to not just jazzbos, but fans of popular music of all styles.” Fair enough. But jazzbos beware.

2009-04-23T11:45:31-04:00

4 The trio here, with bassist Trey Henry and drummer Ray Brinker, is probably best known as Tierney Sutton’s back-up band. But they have also been a stand-alone ensemble for 12 years and sound like it. They interweave their three voices with a confidence and clarity that only come with time. This album was recorded at the TUC jazz club in Tokyo. Christian Jacob makes the inspired choice to include four melodies that “every Japanese person would recognize.” They are depictions of the four seasons that have been taught in Japanese elementary schools for generations. “Hana” is a little like “Up Up And Away” and is airy and bright with the affirmation of spring. Jacob’s trio makes “Akatonbo” sound like a classic jazz ballad about autumn. Jacob is an accomplished pianist, but his single greatest strength may be his capacity for creating fresh, ambitious, architecturally meticulous trio arrangements. That skill accounts for his seamless transformation of old Japanese children’s songs into jazz. It also explains why his versions of done-to-death standards like “Too Close for Comfort” and “All or Nothing At All” and “It Never Entered My Mind” all sound like their composers wrote them yesterday and gave them to Jacob to rework them. true 209 2009-04-20T14:43:19-04:00 false 24664 174 true 61 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

The trio here, with bassist Trey Henry and drummer Ray Brinker, is probably best known as Tierney Sutton’s back-up band. But they have also been a stand-alone ensemble for 12 years and sound like it. They interweave their three voices with a confidence and clarity that only come with time. This album was recorded at the TUC jazz club in Tokyo. Christian Jacob makes the inspired choice to include four melodies that “every Japanese person would recognize.” They are depictions of the four seasons that have been taught in Japanese elementary schools for generations. “Hana” is a little like “Up Up And Away” and is airy and bright with the affirmation of spring. Jacob’s trio makes “Akatonbo” sound like a classic jazz ballad about autumn. Jacob is an accomplished pianist, but his single greatest strength may be his capacity for creating fresh, ambitious, architecturally meticulous trio arrangements. That skill accounts for his seamless transformation of old Japanese children’s songs into jazz. It also explains why his versions of done-to-death standards like “Too Close for Comfort” and “All or Nothing At All” and “It Never Entered My Mind” all sound like their composers wrote them yesterday and gave them to Jacob to rework them.

2009-04-23T11:45:14-04:00

4 Eyran Katsenelenbogen, who claims Felix Mendelssohn in his family tree, plays solo piano like no one in jazz. His music is a wildly eclectic fantasia, with dizzying runs of ornamentation whirling at warp speed, spin-offs and digressions intruding upon and finally overwhelming sober classical structures, and jarring lurches from treble whispers to bass chord crashes. What Katsenelenbogen plays is music, as opposed to gymnastics. He ties each outrageous outpouring into a coherent whole and lands on his feet, even if his bravura knows no bounds. Katsenelenbogen is all about shock and awe. The listener takes cover and stands back, waiting to see what particular feats a given song will inspire. “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,” usually played by jazz musicians as a passionate protest, is here a technical inquiry into how vast a musical tapestry can be woven from a single melody. “Those Were the Days,” that fluff of nostalgia, becomes so triumphant and imposing Rachmaninoff might have written it. “The Summer Knows,” Michel Legrand’s sweet and gentle celebration of soft air and light, runs into a summer storm of tremolos. true 209 2009-04-20T14:45:11-04:00 false 24665 174 true 61 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

Eyran Katsenelenbogen, who claims Felix Mendelssohn in his family tree, plays solo piano like no one in jazz. His music is a wildly eclectic fantasia, with dizzying runs of ornamentation whirling at warp speed, spin-offs and digressions intruding upon and finally overwhelming sober classical structures, and jarring lurches from treble whispers to bass chord crashes. What Katsenelenbogen plays is music, as opposed to gymnastics. He ties each outrageous outpouring into a coherent whole and lands on his feet, even if his bravura knows no bounds. Katsenelenbogen is all about shock and awe. The listener takes cover and stands back, waiting to see what particular feats a given song will inspire. “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,” usually played by jazz musicians as a passionate protest, is here a technical inquiry into how vast a musical tapestry can be woven from a single melody. “Those Were the Days,” that fluff of nostalgia, becomes so triumphant and imposing Rachmaninoff might have written it. “The Summer Knows,” Michel Legrand’s sweet and gentle celebration of soft air and light, runs into a summer storm of tremolos.

2009-04-23T11:44:47-04:00

4 This boxed set reissues three Steve Kuhn albums from the ’70s, all long out of print. It is an uneven package, with one solo gem (Ecstasy), one quartet album that is easier to respect than to love (Motility), and one problem (Playground). Playground is a problem because singer Sheila Jordan is buried so deep in the mix that she is drowned out by Kuhn’s trio, and her words are often unintelligible. It is an inexplicable error for an ECM recording. The six vocal songs are Kuhn originals. Their stream-of-consciousness lyrics sometimes come upon epiphanies, like “I will always miss what we never had.” Jordan’s dramatizations, insofar as we can hear them, sound emotionally authentic, and Kuhn’s open structures are innovative. But the weird mix undermines these enigmatic jazz art songs. On Motility, Steve Slagle plays a lot but rarely solos. His flute provides silver coloring on “The Rain Forest,” and his frenetic soprano saxophone is the turbulence within “Oceans In the Sky.” Motility is a challenging work. Irrational impulses take the music from the near silence of widely spaced treble piano notes to saxophone shrieks and piano thunder, then back to quietude. Following these creative forces as they are unleashed is interesting for the intellect but often unpleasant for the ears. Ecstasy also contains startling mood swings. Long passages of meditative melodicism descend without warning into turmoil. But working alone, Kuhn comes up with spontaneous piano designs that feel more organic, and the dominant impression is his continuous discovery of fresh lyrical form. Like the other two albums here, Ecstasy features Kuhn’s compositions. “Silver” and “Thoughts of a Gentleman” and “Life’s Backward Glance” often reappeared on his later recordings, but these versions are Kuhn’s freest and deepest. In the early ’70s ECM released a series of recordings by Keith Jarrett (Facing You) and Chick Corea (Piano Improvisations in two volumes) and Paul Bley (Open, To Love) that revived interest in the solo piano improvised art form. Ecstasy got less attention at the time, but deserves to join that list. true 209 2009-04-20T14:47:09-04:00 false 24666 174 true 61 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

This boxed set reissues three Steve Kuhn albums from the ’70s, all long out of print. It is an uneven package, with one solo gem (Ecstasy), one quartet album that is easier to respect than to love (Motility), and one problem (Playground). Playground is a problem because singer Sheila Jordan is buried so deep in the mix that she is drowned out by Kuhn’s trio, and her words are often unintelligible. It is an inexplicable error for an ECM recording. The six vocal songs are Kuhn originals. Their stream-of-consciousness lyrics sometimes come upon epiphanies, like “I will always miss what we never had.” Jordan’s dramatizations, insofar as we can hear them, sound emotionally authentic, and Kuhn’s open structures are innovative. But the weird mix undermines these enigmatic jazz art songs. On Motility, Steve Slagle plays a lot but rarely solos. His flute provides silver coloring on “The Rain Forest,” and his frenetic soprano saxophone is the turbulence within “Oceans In the Sky.” Motility is a challenging work. Irrational impulses take the music from the near silence of widely spaced treble piano notes to saxophone shrieks and piano thunder, then back to quietude. Following these creative forces as they are unleashed is interesting for the intellect but often unpleasant for the ears. Ecstasy also contains startling mood swings. Long passages of meditative melodicism descend without warning into turmoil. But working alone, Kuhn comes up with spontaneous piano designs that feel more organic, and the dominant impression is his continuous discovery of fresh lyrical form. Like the other...

2009-04-23T11:44:18-04:00

4 John Stetch’s improbable decision to create jazz versions of TV themes from the ’70s and ’80s gives rise to an interesting question: What is a “standard”? Conventional jazz wisdom answers “Stella By Starlight” or “Skylark,” which helps explain why jazz has pretty much lost the generations born after 1960. They don’t know “Skylark,” but the themes to Star Trek and Dallas will be forever in their heads. Therefore they have a chance to understand how pianist Stetch reimagines them. Stetch and bassist Doug Weiss find all kinds of unsuspected stuff in “Love Boat,” including macho ostinatos and in-your-face block chords. The twittering little ditty that once announced Sanford and Son is here given complexity and real funk. Stetch, believe it or not, in a 93-second solo version, turns the theme to All My Children seriously poignant. Some of this music is bubblegum (e.g., “The Price is Right”), and the best Stetch can do with it is get it out of the way quickly so he can blow. But you’ve got to hand it to a trio that does “This Is It” (the Bugs Bunny theme) as an Ahmad Jamal tribute, with riffs and vamps and tags and even whipping brushes from Rodney Green that channel Jamal’s drummer, Vernell Fournier. true 209 2009-04-20T14:47:45-04:00 false 24667 174 true 61 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

John Stetch’s improbable decision to create jazz versions of TV themes from the ’70s and ’80s gives rise to an interesting question: What is a “standard”? Conventional jazz wisdom answers “Stella By Starlight” or “Skylark,” which helps explain why jazz has pretty much lost the generations born after 1960. They don’t know “Skylark,” but the themes to Star Trek and Dallas will be forever in their heads. Therefore they have a chance to understand how pianist Stetch reimagines them. Stetch and bassist Doug Weiss find all kinds of unsuspected stuff in “Love Boat,” including macho ostinatos and in-your-face block chords. The twittering little ditty that once announced Sanford and Son is here given complexity and real funk. Stetch, believe it or not, in a 93-second solo version, turns the theme to All My Children seriously poignant. Some of this music is bubblegum (e.g., “The Price is Right”), and the best Stetch can do with it is get it out of the way quickly so he can blow. But you’ve got to hand it to a trio that does “This Is It” (the Bugs Bunny theme) as an Ahmad Jamal tribute, with riffs and vamps and tags and even whipping brushes from Rodney Green that channel Jamal’s drummer, Vernell Fournier.

2009-04-23T11:44:02-04:00

4 This is the debut leader recording by a musician with an extraordinary life story. Donald Vega was smuggled out of civil war-torn Nicaragua when he was 14, was eventually granted political asylum in the U.S., and, through benefactors in the Los Angeles jazz community, received surgical treatment for a cleft palate, without which he would have lost his hearing. He now has a Masters degree from the Manhattan School of Music and an Artist Diploma from Juilliard. He is an exceptionally articulate pianist, fluent in many idioms of the modern jazz piano tradition, with sophisticated concepts of form. (Check out, for example, his trio’s orchestral enhancements to “Speak Low”). Vega’s Latin roots are sublimated. There is one danzón here, “Our Spanish Love Song,” but it was written by Charlie Haden. While his trio (with bassist David J. Grossman and drummer Lewis Nash) has a strong spring in its step, Vega’s single most distinctive characteristic is his romantic lyricism. In jazz, “pretty” can be a pejorative adjective. Vega is a pretty player in the deepest, truest sense, because those sweet notes his right hand finds are firm and intelligent. In Vega’s hands, Victor Herbert’s “Indian Summer” is a melodic metaphor for joy, no less valuable because it is transitory. His best compositions, like “Nostalgia” and “Butterfly Waltz,” also contain complex currents of feeling. true 209 2009-04-20T14:48:21-04:00 false 24668 174 true 61 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

This is the debut leader recording by a musician with an extraordinary life story. Donald Vega was smuggled out of civil war-torn Nicaragua when he was 14, was eventually granted political asylum in the U.S., and, through benefactors in the Los Angeles jazz community, received surgical treatment for a cleft palate, without which he would have lost his hearing. He now has a Masters degree from the Manhattan School of Music and an Artist Diploma from Juilliard. He is an exceptionally articulate pianist, fluent in many idioms of the modern jazz piano tradition, with sophisticated concepts of form. (Check out, for example, his trio’s orchestral enhancements to “Speak Low”). Vega’s Latin roots are sublimated. There is one danzón here, “Our Spanish Love Song,” but it was written by Charlie Haden. While his trio (with bassist David J. Grossman and drummer Lewis Nash) has a strong spring in its step, Vega’s single most distinctive characteristic is his romantic lyricism. In jazz, “pretty” can be a pejorative adjective. Vega is a pretty player in the deepest, truest sense, because those sweet notes his right hand finds are firm and intelligent. In Vega’s hands, Victor Herbert’s “Indian Summer” is a melodic metaphor for joy, no less valuable because it is transitory. His best compositions, like “Nostalgia” and “Butterfly Waltz,” also contain complex currents of feeling.

2009-04-23T11:43:47-04:00

4 This live album was recorded over a five-year period between 2001 and 2006 at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles and the Outpost in Albuquerque. Denny Zeitlin and his trio stretch way out, let tunes flow according to the dictates of particular evenings in California and New Mexico, and give everyone space to blow. In Concert is extravagant and spontaneous as only live recordings can be, but never feels loose or rough. Zeitlin is an instinctively orderly artist. “Mr. P.C.” has a quick-on-quick original minor blues chorus, a strange unaccompanied out-of-time free piano interlude that finds its way beautifully back to the blues, a trio ride that is half-time but hard, a long, winding road of a bass solo, briefly dominant drums, and a flat-out sprint to the finish line. It is a 13-minute workout with symmetry and balance. “The Night Has 1000 Eyes” is a 20-minute epic with a sequel appended by Zeitlin called “The Night Has 10,000 Eyes.” The whole has myriad subplots and corollaries and inspired individual and collective improvisation, all tied together by strategic vamps. Zeitlin has been making piano trio records for 45 years. This trio with Buster Williams and Matt Wilson may be his strongest, tightest ever. true 209 2009-04-20T14:49:16-04:00 false 24669 174 true 61 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

After 45 years, the pianist's strongest work yet

2009-05-01T14:30:08-04:00

4 This album sounds utterly effortless—like these guys went into the studio and hit the switch and just let it flow. They are pianist John Bunch (swinging his ass off at 86), guitarist Frank Vignola, bassist John Webber, and, on six tunes, flautist Frank Wess. The program is Irving Berlin songs, very familiar (“How Deep Is the Ocean,” “What’ll I Do”) and less so (“Better Luck Next Time”). Bunch is probably best known as an accompanist, from Tony Bennett to Scott Hamilton. On tunes like “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” and “Isn’t This a Lovely Day?,” his exquisitely timed little jabs and fills quietly but insistently prod Wess and Vignola into giving their all. Bunch’s style is to the left of Count Basie and to the right of John Lewis, but he makes you think of them when he solos because of his concision, his ability to choose exactly the four notes the air needs. On “All By Myself,” he builds polite swing into a kind of gentlemanly ecstasy. The performances here are so consistent that your favorite will be determined by personal loyalty to a certain Irving Berlin song. The vote here goes to “They Say It’s Wonderful.” It is lilting and life-affirming and unsentimental, not to mention personal. true 209 2009-02-26T15:21:51-05:00 false 21362 137 true 61 2009-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

This album sounds utterly effortless—like these guys went into the studio and hit the switch and just let it flow. They are pianist John Bunch (swinging his ass off at 86), guitarist Frank Vignola, bassist John Webber, and, on six tunes, flautist Frank Wess. The program is Irving Berlin songs, very familiar (“How Deep Is the Ocean,” “What’ll I Do”) and less so (“Better Luck Next Time”). Bunch is probably best known as an accompanist, from Tony Bennett to Scott Hamilton. On tunes like “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” and “Isn’t This a Lovely Day?,” his exquisitely timed little jabs and fills quietly but insistently prod Wess and Vignola into giving their all. Bunch’s style is to the left of Count Basie and to the right of John Lewis, but he makes you think of them when he solos because of his concision, his ability to choose exactly the four notes the air needs. On “All By Myself,” he builds polite swing into a kind of gentlemanly ecstasy. The performances here are so consistent that your favorite will be determined by personal loyalty to a certain Irving Berlin song. The vote here goes to “They Say It’s Wonderful.” It is lilting and life-affirming and unsentimental, not to mention personal.

2009-03-02T00:28:24-05:00

4 Chantale Gagné is a young pianist from Quebec with the sound judgment to bring in Peter Washington and Lewis Nash as the rhythm section on her debut recording. Washington’s time is like Big Ben’s, and Nash’s energy is a crisp tailwind. They make Gagné’s music glide with elegance at any speed. Gagné plays with a clear, assertive touch and a balanced, intelligent sense of form, if not much appetite for risk. Her “But Beautiful” is so orderly and methodical that it misses the song’s emotion. (Washington’s brief bass solo stays close to the melody and contains more wistfulness.) Monk’s “I Mean You” is accurate but unadventurous. Her most interesting interpretation of a standard is Bill Evans’ “Peri’s Scope,” where her displaced accents create unanticipated tension and gratifying release. Gagné’s compositions are well made. Her uptempo and funky tunes (“Second Wave,” “In My Mind”) sound generic and vaguely familiar. Her slower stuff is stronger. “Tranquilité” and “New York Nights” sustain intense, quiet reveries as they patiently unfold their stories. true 209 2009-02-26T15:22:29-05:00 false 21363 137 true 61 2009-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

Chantale Gagné is a young pianist from Quebec with the sound judgment to bring in Peter Washington and Lewis Nash as the rhythm section on her debut recording. Washington’s time is like Big Ben’s, and Nash’s energy is a crisp tailwind. They make Gagné’s music glide with elegance at any speed. Gagné plays with a clear, assertive touch and a balanced, intelligent sense of form, if not much appetite for risk. Her “But Beautiful” is so orderly and methodical that it misses the song’s emotion. (Washington’s brief bass solo stays close to the melody and contains more wistfulness.) Monk’s “I Mean You” is accurate but unadventurous. Her most interesting interpretation of a standard is Bill Evans’ “Peri’s Scope,” where her displaced accents create unanticipated tension and gratifying release. Gagné’s compositions are well made. Her uptempo and funky tunes (“Second Wave,” “In My Mind”) sound generic and vaguely familiar. Her slower stuff is stronger. “Tranquilité” and “New York Nights” sustain intense, quiet reveries as they patiently unfold their stories.

2009-03-02T00:28:24-05:00

4 Like all the most important record producers, Manfred Eicher of ECM is a major talent scout. His latest discovery is the German pianist Julia Hülsmann. It is easy to hear what drew Eicher to Hülsmann and her trio. She is an artist inclined toward the darker colors and to the Zen of less-is-more. Her ensemble belongs with other ECM piano trios because it is a participatory democracy. Bassist Marc Muellbauer and drummer Heinrich Köbberling are fully articulate individual voices, not accompanists. Muellbauer is a discovery in himself. When he takes the lead on pieces like “Konbawa” and “Senza,” he rivets attention and adds weight and portent to the moment. As a composer, Hülsmann creates fresh minimalist poetry like the title track, a farewell to summer based on the alternation of a melancholy chord and a single chiming treble note. Her aesthetic is also revealed in the one piece not composed by a member of the trio. She turns Seal’s bombastic “Kiss From a Rose” into a something like a dirge. Her measured, contemplative creative process can, over the length of an entire album, sometimes sound ponderous. But the dominant impression created by The End of a Summer is the serious purpose and promise of Hülsmann’s major label debut. true 209 2009-02-26T15:23:04-05:00 false 21364 137 true 61 2009-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

Like all the most important record producers, Manfred Eicher of ECM is a major talent scout. His latest discovery is the German pianist Julia Hülsmann. It is easy to hear what drew Eicher to Hülsmann and her trio. She is an artist inclined toward the darker colors and to the Zen of less-is-more. Her ensemble belongs with other ECM piano trios because it is a participatory democracy. Bassist Marc Muellbauer and drummer Heinrich Köbberling are fully articulate individual voices, not accompanists. Muellbauer is a discovery in himself. When he takes the lead on pieces like “Konbawa” and “Senza,” he rivets attention and adds weight and portent to the moment. As a composer, Hülsmann creates fresh minimalist poetry like the title track, a farewell to summer based on the alternation of a melancholy chord and a single chiming treble note. Her aesthetic is also revealed in the one piece not composed by a member of the trio. She turns Seal’s bombastic “Kiss From a Rose” into a something like a dirge. Her measured, contemplative creative process can, over the length of an entire album, sometimes sound ponderous. But the dominant impression created by The End of a Summer is the serious purpose and promise of Hülsmann’s major label debut.

2009-03-02T00:28:25-05:00

4 Inventions is a different piano trio: Bill Mays on piano, Marvin Stamm on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Alisa Horn on cello. Delaware River Suite is a different album: a seven-part musical and spoken-word pastorale about a river. Mays wrote the music and the words for the suite, but pieces by other composers are appended before and after it, chosen because they “fit the mood and the musical scenery.” On Jobim’s “Zingaro” and Reinhardt’s “Nuages,” the exceptional musicianship of these three players is evident, and the expressive capabilities of their distinctive ensemble blend, with its contrasting timbres. But the suite is rather a chore. The spoken sections by Mays and Horn are described as “campfire stories.” Their bad grammar and countrified slang sound self-conscious. The overall effect is a little like Prairie Home Companion and more like narrated musical shows you were forced to sit through in high school assemblies. Musically, too many stops along the Delaware River (“Rollin’ Down the Water Gap,” “Float,” “Shohola Hoedown”) are cute or silly or corny, respectively. true 209 2009-02-26T15:23:42-05:00 false 21365 137 true 61 2009-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

Inventions is a different piano trio: Bill Mays on piano, Marvin Stamm on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Alisa Horn on cello. Delaware River Suite is a different album: a seven-part musical and spoken-word pastorale about a river. Mays wrote the music and the words for the suite, but pieces by other composers are appended before and after it, chosen because they “fit the mood and the musical scenery.” On Jobim’s “Zingaro” and Reinhardt’s “Nuages,” the exceptional musicianship of these three players is evident, and the expressive capabilities of their distinctive ensemble blend, with its contrasting timbres. But the suite is rather a chore. The spoken sections by Mays and Horn are described as “campfire stories.” Their bad grammar and countrified slang sound self-conscious. The overall effect is a little like Prairie Home Companion and more like narrated musical shows you were forced to sit through in high school assemblies. Musically, too many stops along the Delaware River (“Rollin’ Down the Water Gap,” “Float,” “Shohola Hoedown”) are cute or silly or corny, respectively.

2009-03-02T00:28:25-05:00

4 A studio recording cannot capture the tone of an occasion like a live recording. The tone of this occasion sounds ecstatic. There is a category of consumer that needs to own this record: audiophile piano addicts. Live at Caramoor is an immersion in the aural gratifications of pianism. Jovino Santos Neto and Weber Iago are both from Brazil but their musical mindsets are global. Their performance at the Caramoor Jazz Festival in Katonah, N.Y., in July of 2007 was the first time that two hand-made Fazioli D308 concert grand pianos were on the same stage. The rich, complex sonorities of those two Faziolis ring out and sing. They play individually and together. Iago’s “Navegante” has oscillating left-hand chords quite independent of his classical, percussive right-hand densities. Santos Neto’s “Lamentos” (composed by Pixinguinha) is also classically ornate and but only briefly formal. The title means “laments.” Santos Neto does not sound sad as he pummels the melody and gleefully pursues its variations. The lushest piano extravagances occur when they play together. On “Desafinado” Santos Neto keens and whines the famous theme on his second instrument, the melodica, then returns to piano where he and Iago overwhelm the tune, fourhanded. Joe Lovano joins on “Wave,” the final track, his soprano saxophone wheeling over a surging piano sea. true 209 2009-02-26T15:24:11-05:00 false 21366 137 true 61 2009-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

A studio recording cannot capture the tone of an occasion like a live recording. The tone of this occasion sounds ecstatic. There is a category of consumer that needs to own this record: audiophile piano addicts. Live at Caramoor is an immersion in the aural gratifications of pianism. Jovino Santos Neto and Weber Iago are both from Brazil but their musical mindsets are global. Their performance at the Caramoor Jazz Festival in Katonah, N.Y., in July of 2007 was the first time that two hand-made Fazioli D308 concert grand pianos were on the same stage. The rich, complex sonorities of those two Faziolis ring out and sing. They play individually and together. Iago’s “Navegante” has oscillating left-hand chords quite independent of his classical, percussive right-hand densities. Santos Neto’s “Lamentos” (composed by Pixinguinha) is also classically ornate and but only briefly formal. The title means “laments.” Santos Neto does not sound sad as he pummels the melody and gleefully pursues its variations. The lushest piano extravagances occur when they play together. On “Desafinado” Santos Neto keens and whines the famous theme on his second instrument, the melodica, then returns to piano where he and Iago overwhelm the tune, fourhanded. Joe Lovano joins on “Wave,” the final track, his soprano saxophone wheeling over a surging piano sea.

2009-03-02T00:28:25-05:00

4 Pianists in their debut recordings rarely sound as poised and centered and fully formed as Greg Reitan. He waited until he was 35 to make Some Other Time, and he is a thoroughly schooled musician with an extensive résumé as a composer for film and television. Still, it is impressive that every track here postulates a different challenging concept and executes it, seemingly without breaking a sweat. Reitan plays done-to-death Cole Porter tunes with fresh, glistening elegance (“All of You”), uncovers and freely decorates little-known gems (Vince Guaraldi’s “Star Song”), hits a playfully nasty funk groove on a Beatles song (“Dear Prudence”), and makes “Giant Steps” sound like a blocky waltz. He also writes intelligent songs of his own. The best is a hovering, ambivalent ballad, “The Wayfarer.” Reitan’s strengths are his clarity and his sensitive, precise touch. Pianists with surfaces this polished sometimes lack depth. Not Reitan. His “Time Remembered” is one of the most affecting renderings of that song’s emotion since its composer, Bill Evans, stopped playing it. The title track also alludes to Evans because its gentle two-chord vamp melds Leonard Bernstein’s composition with Evans’ “Peace Piece,” and turns “Some Other Time” into a dead slow, fervent ritual. true 209 2009-02-26T15:24:57-05:00 false 21367 137 true 61 2009-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

Pianists in their debut recordings rarely sound as poised and centered and fully formed as Greg Reitan. He waited until he was 35 to make Some Other Time, and he is a thoroughly schooled musician with an extensive résumé as a composer for film and television. Still, it is impressive that every track here postulates a different challenging concept and executes it, seemingly without breaking a sweat. Reitan plays done-to-death Cole Porter tunes with fresh, glistening elegance (“All of You”), uncovers and freely decorates little-known gems (Vince Guaraldi’s “Star Song”), hits a playfully nasty funk groove on a Beatles song (“Dear Prudence”), and makes “Giant Steps” sound like a blocky waltz. He also writes intelligent songs of his own. The best is a hovering, ambivalent ballad, “The Wayfarer.” Reitan’s strengths are his clarity and his sensitive, precise touch. Pianists with surfaces this polished sometimes lack depth. Not Reitan. His “Time Remembered” is one of the most affecting renderings of that song’s emotion since its composer, Bill Evans, stopped playing it. The title track also alludes to Evans because its gentle two-chord vamp melds Leonard Bernstein’s composition with Evans’ “Peace Piece,” and turns “Some Other Time” into a dead slow, fervent ritual.

2009-03-02T00:28:25-05:00