Stefano Bollani, Joy in Spite of Everything

If you get the right musicians together with a leader who has a good idea where he wants to go and a set of compositions that helps bring that direction to bear, and if conditions are ripe for it, you have something very worthwhile. That is the case with Italian pianist Stefano Bollani, his music, and his choice of companions in the recent Joy in Spite of Everything (ECM B0021437-02).

This is music that has a post-Jarrettian flavor to it. Yet it maintains an independent stance. Stefano chose wisely with a line-up consisting of Mark Turner on tenor, Bill Frisell on electric guitar, Jesper Bodilsen, double-bass, and Morten Lund, drums. The rhythm team may be less well-known than the front line but all play very well and sound as if they belong together. And they do.

Stefano Bollani bears close listening. He will surprise you with a phrase that catches you unawares, a run that sounds just right, a creative and technical prowess that puts him at the top of the ECM-style pianists out there today. Both Mark Turner and Bill Frisell sound as good as ever, turning in solos that bring on their own individuality and originality yet swing and poeticize in ways that keep pushing the music forward.

The tunes are very good ones, both of their time and looking forward, embodying jazz tradition yet doing something with that to make it different. They are rather excellent.

Bollani is a joy to hear, a player who is at a peak, certainly, on this album. Everybody else gets right in with it. This is a beauty!

Billy Hart Quartet, One is the Other

For all the years drummer Billy Hart has been out there doing it, with all kinds of beacon lighters and in all shades of time and tempo, you must feel the justness that he finally has come to a steady and engaging position as bandleader, head of the Billy Hart Quartet. As the group now has a second effort released on ECM, One is Another (ECM B0020033-02), there are further reasons to feel he is finally getting his due.

It is natural (at least for me) to feel the justice of this. He is one of the leading drummers of our lifetime, no question, and his place in the limelight as deserved as any. The second outing features a large slice of what the quartet can and does cover, with originals and a standard, with channelings of the later history of jazz, with players and playing that have the vanguard feel.

Mark Turner's tenor plays an important role here, as you may well imagine, but then pianist Ethan Iverson has a fundamental presence too. Bassist Ben Street gets the anchor firmly planted and Billy Hart's playing is as freely loquacious as ever.

If one might expect Billy's band to have a little more fire than it does here, that is putting an expectation on things that the artists choose to bypass. It's no less a great effort for its relative calm and no one could be accused of holding back. So you readjust your sites and you get some really beautifully played jazz here.

All the more power and acclaim to Billy Hart! Listen to this one, by all means.

Billy Hart Quartet, All Our Reasons

The Billy Hart Quartet has evolved since its origins in a hard bop mode around 2003. The newest album All Our Reasons (ECM B0016575-02) brings them into free-space territory.

It's an excellent platform for the talents of maestro Hart on the drums plus Mark Turner on tenor, Ethan Iverson, piano, and Ben Street, bass. Hart, Iverson and Turner all contribute compositions.

Iverson's "Ohnedaruth" works freely with the changes of Coltrane's "Giant Steps" in ways somewhat similar to what trumpeter Peter Evans has done with "All the Things You Are." That is, to follow the sequence of changes but in a very free way, thoroughly loosening up the rhythmic pulse at times and injecting a healthy creative freedom into the mix.

Billy Hart has always been a drummer who is both driving and very musical. I remember the feeling when I saw him with Mwandishi in 1972 that here was a player who didn't fall into the typical patterns to get through, but rather was filled with inventive ideas that worked well with whatever music was at hand. He has only gotten more profound in this way as he has matured over the years. You can just listen to him on this album and get plenty to enjoy and think about. But of course with Mark Turner's tenor and his controlled passion, Ethan Iverson's well-thought-out pianism, Ben Street's solid, musically astute anchorage and the engaging original compositions to be had here, there is a total experience.

It is music that freely engages virtually everything in the players' individual jazz arsenals, but also makes for a group effort in the best sense. It may take a few plays to get into the spirit of the music, but you WILL know when you get there. And I suspect you will get there as I did. This is a jazz for today. Recommended.