Craig Taborn Trio, Chants

Pianist Craig Taborn is on a roll. He's been really coming into his own of late. Now with a trio recording, Chants (ECM 2326), he puts it all together. Craig brings in Thomas Morgan on acoustic bass and Gerald Cleaver at the drums.

The trio get to it with a set of nicely thought-out originals. Craig uses a variety of pianistic devices all in original ways. In addition to the contemporary post-bop/avant/harmonically sophisticated pallet of techniques there is at times a contrapuntal approach, minimalist repetition and an all-over sense of adventure throughout.

Some gorgeous ballad playing alternates with energetic forays.

The entire album is a model of what a modern piano trio can be all about, and most certainly is here. It bears the stamp of originality and at the same time envelops the listener in sounds to enrich and enliven.

And the ECM sound is fabulous.

Bobo Stenson Trio, Indicum

In listening to the new Bobo Stenson Trio album Indicum (ECM 2233) I said at first, "gee, sounds familiar." Then I had to remind myself that Maestro Stenson was a part of ECM (with Garbarek, etc.) nearly from the very beginning. If there is an ECM piano sound (and there is), he had something to do with fashioning it. Bley, Jarrett, Stenson...they shared and share stylistic traits. Bill Evans was an elder relation then, surely. Bobo Stenson today is still a vital part of that sound, and he is playing and extending himself, it is important to remember.

Appropriately Indicum gives him and his trio a good variety of material to work with, band originals and improvisations, a Bill Evans number, George Russell's "Event VI" in a very nice version, a Norwegian traditional melody, and so forth.

Anders Jormin on doublebass and Jon Falt on drums do what you might expect from such a trio and do so well. Bobo shows a ruminative, reflective side on many of the pieces in a balladic sense and he sounds very beautiful in the process.

It's one that modern piano trio fans will love. A perfect record for long winter nights ahead...Norway or New Jersey.

Tyson Naylor Trio, Kosmonauten

A fanfare sort of rolling Ornette-cum-Jarrett figure sets the Tyson Naylor Trio's Kosmonauten (Songlines 1594-2) off and rolling. Some free playing and a riff in 10 comes into play and Tyson does a sort of Bley-Jarrett rollicking solo.

Tyson is a native of Vancouver. After three years in Berlin, he returns to his homeland and gives us a nicely put together trio offering here. It's Tyson on piano, Skye Brooks on drums and Russell Sholberg on acoustic bass. Francois Houle joins the enclave on clarinet for several numbers.

The emphasis is on loose contemporary free-influenced piano trio music a la post-Jarrett. There is a modified boogie, a rather lovely jazz-waltz, some free excursions, bluesy ballads, some swinging, and a song very Carla Bley-like...in other words, a good bit of variety. Houle makes a fine addition on the tracks he graces.

All in all Tyson Naylor is off to a nice start for his return to home. If he continues to develop along his own lines, he will be even more compelling. As it is this is eclectic, well done modern piano trio music.

Romain Collin, The Calling

What starts in the jazz community doesn't always stay in the jazz community. To put it another way, when a upcoming jazz artist gets a reputation among fellow musicians and advance-garde enthusiasts, with some luck and the right releases, his or her music can come to be appreciated in the wider music-listening world. Such a fate may well be in store for pianist-composer Romain Collin. His album The Calling (Palmetto 2156) will be officially out this coming month (though it appears to be available now, at least as a download). I have an advance copy playing one more time as I write this, and I must say that his is the sort of music that could garner him a wide coterie of enthusiasts.

It's a piano trio throughout, with Collin joined by Luques Curtis and Kendrick Scott on double bass and drums, respectively. They are augmented by John Shannon on guitar and Adrian Daurov on cello for several tracks.

In part this music is about the acoustic jazz-rock piano trio sort of thing that Jarrett and then Mehldau, Benevento, and a number of others have made a part of their approach. Romain and his trio play with the sophisticated interactions one expects from a good piano trio: interplay and openness with arranged-composed signposts along the way. There is a very interesting, identifiably original compositional richness to Collin's music that sets him on in his own plane, so to say. Sometimes it is lushly rhapsodic, sometimes pointedly thrusting in a rhythmically kicking fashion. He has a lyrical strain to him that many will find to their liking. And from a technical standpoint his playing shows he has been thoroughly schooled pianistically and makes imaginative use of that background. He can also throw a solo at you that will give you pause and make you smile.

This is a kind of wistful jazz-rock romanticism with compositional heft. His music has all the earmarking of a wider audience. He's the sort of artist that can convert new age lovers into something more formidable without sounding like he is "playing down" to them.

That's a knack. It is a thoroughly enjoyable album with some heavyweight pianism. I wish him all success.

Bob Gluck's Exceptional Piano Trio Outing: "Returning"

Bob Gluck goes his own way. He is an excellent pianist, with harmonic and melodic ideas to spare. His recent Returning (FMR 292-0710) finds him in formidable company. Drummer Dean Sharp has the sensitivity and big ears to thrive in the intimate free-oriented trio setting. Michael Bisio has basso profundo status these days. He has become a major player (see my recent interview with him in All About Jazz), and for good reason. You have to have independent inventive prowess plus good team-interactivity to thrive in an open piano trio setting as a bassist now (and mostly always), and Michael surely has both.

Returning shows the integrity and artistic brilliance of those early Paul Bley trios, then affirms that this is the Bob Gluck Trio, with certain affinities, but with the compunction and talent to extend the forms and personalize them.

The level of playing has consistency. It is high throughout. The music can be forceful, or whisper to you. It can get a head of steam in the linear swing-zone, then turn around and head into space. The improvisations revel in thematic logic and yet remain open to spontaneity.

Gluck is a stylist of stature. The trio has six hands, and at least three feet (in the musical sense) and they are put magnificently to use here.

Highly recommended.

Burton Greene Trio "Ins and Outs," 2005

Burton Greene to me is always interesting. He was a pioneer of the avant jazz scene in the early sixties and he keeps it strong. I've taken the liberty (as I do sometimes) of covering something that is not the flavor of the month here, since it was recorded in 2005. Good music should not be subject to the demands of clock time. Ins and Outs (CIMP 345) certainly should not be.

It's a trio date that came at the end of a larger group session and so has a relaxed loose quality. Burton Greene's piano is joined by the Schuller brothers--Ed on bass, George on drums. The three together make for excellent chemistry.

Half the pieces performed by the trio are covers of lesser known songs; the other half are Greene originals. In all cases there is a loosely outbop approach. Heads are stated, usually with a regular rhythmic thrust, and then the music can get freely loose and out of strict time, with all three implying the song structure but most definitely on the outside track. Ins and Outs makes for an apt title, then.

Ed Schuller has developed into a bass player that can have great presence in an ensemble and also solo with musically substantive flair. George's drumming is the right combination of pulse and freedom. And Burton is in his element. He is utterly distinct and has been for years,

You may have missed this album but if you like Burton Greene you should definitely check it out. It also would interest anyone who wants to get into modern piano trio jazz that melds the avant with the directly accessible. It's a nice combination and deserves a hearing. Check the Cadence link on this page for the CIMP site.

Stevens, Siegel & Ferguson Trio for Commanding Piano Jazz, "Six"

"Like the Evans, Jamal and Jarrett trios." That's what I accidentally read as I was searching for the cover art to Stevens, Siegel & Ferguson's new recording Six (Konnex 5243). Well. sure. And the fact that they are "like" those groups, that is, that they have intricate interplay between all three members, that the bass and drums have equal footing in the musical dialog, that harmonic sophistication and lyrical line weaving are the orders of the day, that they play a good number of standards. . . all that is true.

But they also have carved their own notch onto that particular branch of the music. Six shows that with ten well-considered numbers. The originals, half of the numbers contained in the set, are quite nice and the choice of standards are nothing to sneeze at. "It Never Entered My Mind" is such a hauntingly evocative song and they add some harmonic tension to emphasize the mood of quiet despair. That's true of their treatment of all the non-originals. They are no mere run-throughs.

All three players have a kind of intrinsic power of conviction (to allude to an album title by another trio that they are "like") and a thorough stylistic maturity that make for strong musical results. And of course that implies that they are well attuned to one another's doings on the bandstand (or the studio).

Strength. This trio has it. Six has beautiful music going on. Lots of it!

George Dulin Disband: An Exciting New Piano Voice

The pianism of George Dulin has all the linear thrust and power of a Bud Powell, but different notes! He's rather young but his play does not sound like it. There is a fully formed vision of how to go about his art. He is joined by thoroughly hip trio-mates on the Cadence Jazz album Ride of Your Life. Danny Zanker plays a forceful and note-refined bass. He solos with aggressive flair, plays ensemble passages with drive and walks (and sometimes skips along) with some of the best. The late drummer Take Toriyama has creative energy and a real stylistic thrust that helps make this group excel. He is replaced on three numbers by Jordan Perlson, who does the right things as well, if perhaps not as startlingly so.

The program contains standards like "Round Midnight" and "Monk's Mood," and a series of highly engaging recompositions of further standards. "Ella's Night-Light," for example, reworks "Stella By Starlight" ingeniously. The re-presentations are so inimitable and so complete that their original reference points become almost irrelevant. There are also a few quirkily engaging originals that are more or less tabula rasa.

Dulin plays plays bop without the bop. He has rethought the roots of modern jazz and remade them in his own stylistic image. A description of his playing? He has a harmonic grounding in traditional form and at his own volition, deconstructs, reconstructs and supersedes those forms at will. There is a rhythmic abundance to his playing at times, the modern equivalent to those semi-bizarre, tumbling anarchic introductions Erroll Garner pulled off so dramatically, only they are not quite the same, and they don't introduce anything but themselves.

Other times he gets into a linearly swinging chain of notes that don't have the least bit of cliche about them. Still other times he can go into a rubato passage that gives his own take on those pianists that came before in this mode, only he does not quote!

There is much to dig from the standpoint of the trio. Nice arrangements, profound drumming, bassmeistering of a high sort. . . .

Anyone who looks for something rooted yet innovative in the piano trio bag will do well to listen to Ride of Your Life. Dulin could well be a major new voice and you are getting in on the ground floor.

Free Unfold Trio: Quiet Subtlety

Jobic Le Masson, piano, Didier Lassarre, drums, and Benjamin Duboc, bass, collectively form the Free Unfold Trio. Their second album, Ballades (Ayler) is a half-hour of quite subtle, quite free and quite intriguing music. Like some of Paul Bley's excellent trio work of the mid-to-late '60s, they are out to realize a reflective mood, to react as a three-voiced musical being to their muse.

And they do so with much charm and much to hear within the short time span allotted. Understandably, pianist Le Masson has the most prominent voice in the proceedings, but Lasserre and Duboc bring all their interpretive powers into play.

Ballades may even out-do Bley for a laconic, inner-directedness. And of course the classic Bill Evans trios come to mind, but only as a reference. This trio is even more restrained than Bill's in their most impressionistic phase. That is saying something. Most importantly they do what they do not for effect. The music is a genuine expression of where they are at the moment. So it seems to me.

If you like the darker shades of the piano trio in a ballad mode, this will certainly bring you much pleasure. It did for me.

Pianist David Arner's Trio and Their Rechanneling of Porgy and Bess

David Arner has a pianistic fulminosity (it's a kind of abundance) that comes across with the substantial release Porgy/Bess Act 1 (CIMP). He is joined by the first-rank bass virtuoso Michael Bisio and the lightly subtle yet freely engaging drummer Jay Rosen.

In what will be a two-volume release, Mr. Arner takes inspiration from the Gershwin classic Porgy and Bess as well as the Miles Davis-Gil Evans rearrangement from the exceptional 1958 Columbia recording by that name. David Arner does not get involved with a literal rehashing of the score, nor does he take Gershwin themes as head-solo-head arrangements. Rather he and the trio react to the music as a springboard for four free improvisations. You will hear thematic interjections, sometimes in the whole cloth, sometimes as quilted fragments and chordal reminiscences, but all in the context of spontaneous recomposition.

Arner-Bisio-Rosen interact in quite subtle ways and the melodic-kinetic energies of Arner and Bisio are palpable. This is not as much an energy-surging exercise as a varied expressive dialogue. In David Arner we hear the techniques of modern improv piano as well as the harmonic-melodic tradition of the Gershwin and Davis-Evans eras but contextualized to his own ends. And he opens up a space that Michael Bisio and Jay Rosen enter into with open ears and inventive musical discourse.

This is music that takes attentive listening to assimilate. It is not entertaining; it is enlightening.

I would put this among the best piano trio recordings I've heard in this waning year. Arner is an artist of subtlety and depth. The trio is a multi-faceted musical force that gains newfound inspiration from classic sources without repeating the obvious. If only some of the repertoire-oriented aggregations were this creative!

Is John Zorn's New Music "Easy Listening?"

John Zorn is a musical rebel. Throughout his career he has had a certain restless view of genre, never content to get pigeonholed as a writer-performer in "X" category. So he has created music in the concert modernity, the avant garde, bop, improv, free, modern Jewish music, death metal, and others besides.

One of his new recordings, Alhambra Love Songs (Tzadik) for piano trio (Rob Burger, Greg Cohen and Ben Perowsky) seemingly has yet another immersion in unfamiliar (for Zorn) genres. The notes on the cover of the CD announce that the music contained within is "in an easy listening mode," then go on to mention Vince Guaraldi, Henry Mancini and Ramsey Lewis.

So what of the music? Does it makes sense or does it even matter that this could be called easy listening music? OK, it is not difficult listening. It certainly has something about it that reminds of the Guaraldi trio and others like him: very melodic, lyrical, yet rhythmically engaging.

What matters is that the music is in fact a delight to hear. There are odd time signatures, catchy melodies, rock and jazz combinations a la Medeski, Benevento, the Bad Plus and others lately prominent. And there is no small amount of improvisation involved--in the Guaraldi-early Jarrett mode for the most part.

The trio does a capital job creating a trio presentation out of Zorn's pieces, and in the end it's the capacity to delight that puts this disk over the top. Enjoy, and call it anything you like.

Chad Taylor and his Cohorts Turn in Vibrant Piano Trio Jazz in a New Release

Chad Taylor, who if you recall made an important contribution on Fred Anderson's 80th birthday album (see below), shows his versatility as a player, bandleader and writer of music on his new album Circle Down (482 Music).

This is a piano trio date, with Angelica Sanchez on the keys and Chris Lightcap on the upright bass. The objective is to create a group music that is contemporary and ventures into free territory in a loose way. They succeed. The song form foundation of the music always keep things moving in a forward direction. Each group member contributes a number of originals and they are varied and not uninteresting.

Chad's drumming throughout exemplifies the sensitive combination of pulse with free implosions that inspire Lightcap and Sanchez to be inventive and engage in discursive crossplay. I like Angelica's subtle, anti-showboating pianism. It bears close listening and I hope I get a chance to hear more of her in the near future. Chris Lightcap does everything he should in this kind of an intimate setting. He isn't out to overpower you with technique. Again, it's the group effort that he aims for.

Circle Down has that sleeper quality. It perhaps could be easily passed by. That is until you listen closely. Then you find the refined, thoroughly modern qualities which must be attended to for a true appreciation. I hope Mr. Taylor's trio records again soon. This is a group that I suspect can only get better in time. It's already quite good and they give you a very interesting and enjoyable program of music on the current disk. To the future!