album review
MaxJazz
Release date: November 17th 2009
Availability: CD, MP3 Download
'New Strides' is Jeb Patton's debut as a leader on the MaxJazz Piano Series. Yet his depth of experience and understanding of the music immediately comes through.
After studying at Duke University and then at the Aaron Copland School of Music (where he studied with pianist Sir Roland Hanna and Jimmy Heath) he has been the pianist in the Heath Brothers Band for over ten years in addition to continuing to pursue classical music directions and his own jazz trio work such as this.
Bassist David Wong (a New Yorker, a graduate of Julliard School who has played with Roy Haynes, Clark Terry, Illinois Jacquet, Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, David Hazeltine and Jim Rotondi, amongst many others) is from the same band and the understanding developed over time with Jeb Patton is apparent.
The principal drummer is Pete Van Nostrand (also a Julliard School graduate busy on the New York jazz scene since 2000, playing with Aaaron Parkes, Jim Rotondi, Kenny Baron and Mike LeDonne amongst many others) who is regularly appearing in line-ups featuring Jeb Patton and David Wong. As a trio, their playing is tight and empathetic.
Jimmy Heath on saxophone and drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath on drums put in guest appearances. This is the line up of the Heath Brothers album 'Endurance', released just over three months before 'New Strides'.
It is a well chosen programme which features the Jeb Patton originals 'The Music Goes On' and 'Street Song', Jimmy Heath's 'Cloak And Dagger' and three standards - 'If Ever I Would Leave You' (Lerner/Lowe), 'Dream Dancer' (Cole Porter) and the Robin/Chase/Whiting composition 'My Ideal', established as a jazz standard by John Coltrane on the album 'Bahia'.
The E.Y. Harburg/Harold Arlen ballad 'Last Night When We Were Young' is played as a piano/ sax duet between Jeb Patton and Jimmy Heath and is one of the album stand-outs.
Albert 'Tootie' Heath takes over the drum spot on 'Street Song and 'Cloak And Dagger'.
Another stand-out is the Monk-ish uptempo blues 'Sir Roland', a dedication to mentor Sir Roland Hanna and a further Jeb Patton original. Somewhere out there is an unreleased album 'Jeb Patton plays Sir Roland Hanna,' made for the Rmi label.
There is much to enjoy in this hour of intelligent and uplifting music from a trio that should rightly become established as leaders in the highly competitive jazz trio field.
Highly recommended.
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album review
ECM
Release date: October 26th 2009
Availability: CD, MP3 Download
In the crowded genre of the jazz piano trio, signposted by so many great musicians – Bill Evans, Hank Jones, Ahmad Jamal, Cedar Walton, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, Mulgrew Miller, Brad Mehldau, Gonzalo Rubalcaba – it is extraordinarily difficult and near to impossible for a European to stand out. But this is just what Italian pianist Sefano Bollani has done with 'Stone In The Water', his debut album as piano trio leader.
The trio - Stefano Bollani (piano), Jesper Bodilsen (bass), Morten Lund (drums) – first came together in 2002 supporting trumpeter Enrico Rava when he won the JazzPar prize and has performed regularly since then. Stefano Bollani had been featured on four albums with ECM accompanying Enrico Rava and had released the solo album 'Piano Solo' for the label in 2006 but surprisingly 'Stone In The Water' is the trio's first album together.
No-one knows better how to capture piano on a recording than Manfred Eicher, who produced the album when it was recorded in New York in 2008. That sound quality and the presence of the performers that is captured so well here is certainly one of the key features that sets this album apart.
Yet this is more than the typical ECM offering. Just now and then (as, for example, with Gary Burton/ Chick Corea's 'Crystal Silence' or Marc Johnson's 'Shades Of Jade') some real, if restrained, jazz escapes the ECM genre, and this is certainly the case with this fine album.
The piano voicings and the overall take on jazz of the trio echoes Bill Evans, but that is a complement to the great musicianship and rapport that these fine musicians express.
Original compositions by Stefano Bollani and Jesper Bodilsen with versions of Antonio Carlos Jobim's 'Brigas Nunca Mais', Francis Poulenc's 'Improvisation 13 en La Mineur' and Caetano Veloso's 'Dom de Iludir' make up a strong programme of immersive and meditative jazz that, as the album title suggests, summons up real beauty and thoughtfulness.
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ECM
Recording Dates: 1972 - 1979
Re-release date: September 15th, 2009
Availabilty: CD, MP3 download
Chick Corea and Gary Burton's piano and vibes duet playing has been one of the most productive and longlasting partnerships in jazz. Early on, in 1973, it produced the emblematic 'Crystal Silence', one of ECM's signature albums. They have performed together in just about each year since, releasing, thirty-five years later, 'The New Crystal Silence' for Concord.
The paired down setting - the absence of bass, drums or any other instrument - focuses the music on the interplay between these two masters, making good on Pat Metheny's observation that this is 'one of the best bands in the world.'
Brought together in this four CD set are three albums - 'Crystal Silence' (1973), 'Duet'(1979) the live album 'Zürich, October 28, 1979' (1980). The live album, available, if at all, only in truncated form for a number of years, has been restored to its original length, making the collection a definitive reprise of the great duo's recorded work with ECM.
The main composer is Chick Corea, whose Bartok-tinged and often latin-enlivened pieces sparkle. All other tracks, with the exception of "Feelings and Things" (Michael Gibbs), are composed by bassist Steve Swallow, a long time member of the Gary Burton group.
Absorbing jazz of the highest quality, alternately encompassing deep tranquility and uninhibited exuberance.
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Our review of 'The New Crystal Silence'
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