Trioriot
Inarticulate but heartfelt reviews from a jazz piano trio obsessive
Oct 31, 2011
An Autumn Collection 2011
May 29, 2011
ART HIRAHARA TRIO - Noble Path
Yoshi Waki on bass and Dan Aran on drums are Hirahara’s equals and for the trio’s next release I want to hear many more solos especially from Waki who, with Aran, is top flight. Listen carefully and you can here how he converses but occasionally I’d like to hear him make a speech! On the brilliantly constructed Noble Path his playing is superb.
It sounds like this grouping has played often and after a while when you disengage your ears directly from the three music elements and focus on the shared musical thrust you feel the ebb and flow (one of Art’s best originals in this collection is called Ebb and Flow) of a music that although erring on the mainstream is played by three souls who have mastered the craft of musical communication both within their trio and with the listener. From the excellent Posi-Tone label - highly recommend.
Apr 10, 2011
A SPRING FLOURISH
Feb 20, 2011
MAGNUS HJORTH TRIO - Old New Borrowed Blue
As the jazz trio sector expands relentlessly, it is nothing short of a phenomenon how quality, diversity and variety are being maintained and even increased. The time of EST, Brad Mehldau, Bad Plus sound-alike clones (if they ever existed at all) is over and we’re now in a rich verdant meadow that has matured – the great piano trio resurgence of the early 2000s has grown up and taken root – the genre is well and truly rocking day in and day out.
Take Scandinavia. Once easily tarred with the glacial ECM brush it now boasts a diversity of musicians on a wide spectrum of piano styles. In this slipstream along comes newcomer Magnus Hjorth with a great first album Old New Borrowed Blue that makes no excuses for its wide, even mainstream, appeal. But that would be laying on more tar as this is a new release to be reckoned with. This Swede is standing close to the cooker and he doesn’t care what melts.
Basically I have to come clean – yes my preference is for timeless majestic trios that gently caress the soul but I’m also partial to the funk monkeys who have the chops, the tempos and the momentum to rock up a storm and doff a respectful cap to anyone on the jazz piano spectrum from Scott Joplin onwards.
The trio’s opener Qloose is one such track – unbridled fun and with chops to spare it reminds me of an Eric Legnini stomper. Ballroom Steps mixes nostalgia with a poppy theme that is pure taste and whimsy. Let’s Face The Music and Dance finds the trio playing with time at extreme tempo that seems to be attached to a rubber band they stretch and release at will. I love the playfulness and fun the band seem to be having in these complex and technically difficult arrangements. The medium muscular stroll through a re-harmonised Stompin’ At the Savoy is yet more evidence that this new band aren’t afraid to play standards when it might be more hip to play some abstract originals. Goodness, Hjorth isn’t even afraid to play stride. Hjorth can sound like McCoy Tyner at times like on Barber Rhett and then skip between him and Earl Hines like on Good Friday. Sunday Service is a gentle gospel infused piece with Ellingtonian overtones in the twists and turns of the harmony. The closer, an up tempo, Madhouse sounds as fleet fingered as the brace of McCoy Tyner trios albums on Impulse recorded in the early 1960s. Lovely brushwork here by Snorre Kirk and fat toned rapid tempo bass work by the excellent Petter Eldh on bass. We’re left with the feeling that the trio aren’t here to pander but they aren’t afraid to spread the jam over a range of styles either. Bravo.
Dec 14, 2010
LAST FLOURISH OF 2010 - Part 5
Dec 13, 2010
LAST FLOURISH OF 2010 - Part 4
Dec 12, 2010
LAST FLOURISH OF 2010 - Part 3
LAST FLOURISH OF 2010 - Part 2
LAST FLOURISH OF 2010 - Part 1
Sep 5, 2010
ANAT FORT TRIO - And If
My 5 year old son recently made up a good game. We put on some music, launch the iTunes visualizer (must be the Classic not the new one which is dull) and then say things the patterns suggest or make us feel like. He comes up with sentences like ‘I feel like an astronaut playing with shooting stars’, or ‘I’m swimming in a dinosaur’s stomach’. The other day I put on And if by the Anat Fort trio, launched the visualizer and almost immediately he said; ‘It feels like I’m exploring inside a clock’. And in some ways he’s spot on. These ten pieces of exquisitely rendered music are all explorations in time and space played with the tenderness and touch of someone blessed by angels.
Israeli Anat Fort who shares her time between her homeland and NYC is a relative newcomer on the trio scene but is someone I suspect will be a leading light in it for years to come. This new release, only her second ECM album has all the hallmarks of the classic label; beautifully recorded, amazing piano, hi-fi separation between drums, Roland Schneider, and bass, Gary Wang, and a sonorific, ethereal mix that you can lose yourself in after just a few bars. This really is beautiful music for all ages. As Butch said to Sundance, ‘Who are these guys?’. My backlog of reviews is growing and growing as new talents like Anat keep arriving and redrawing the boundaries of trio music.
With touches of Jarrett’s gospel inflections and Crispell’s space and compositional economy, Fort is nonetheless a new original voice that we must savour and delight in. Her association with Paul Motian, another lifelong explorer and master of time, on her previous recording is celebrated in two eponymous pieces top and tailing the set which float on a beautiful slow tempo of time remembered, memories past and love. As the final cymbal sizzle fades we get 12 more seconds of silence to give us time to re-enter the world – we need it. The rolling Clouds’ Moving and tender Minnesota see the trio exploring Americana flavours with an ease of expression and lightness of touch I seldom hear so sensitively played. The canon-like En If embodies a deep focused train of thought and the near 10 minute Something ‘Bout Camels is the collection’s masterpiece full of eastern nuance, finessed harmonic structure and rhythmic interplay of the highest order. Lanesboro is full of longing and paints a more classical picture to accompany the soulful Minnesota, a place I’ve never heard celebrated in Jazz but which obviously plays a significant part in Fort's affections. And just in case you were wondering, Nu shows that she can get down in the grit and grime of the funk with the best of them.
This is deeply romantic, evocative art. I end listening to the 50 minute set wanting to weep for all the beauty in the world or for all its dilemmas or both. I still don’t know which but I do know that this is music that will help you understand your own soul.