MY FIRST POST - Two Loves

After sending various recommendation emails to my friends around the world who also love jazz piano trios I've decided to join the vanity publishing sector and start a blog. I'm totally addicted to piano trios - I don't know why - maybe it's because the first jazz record I ever bought when I was 15 was a piano trio recording - Duke Jordan's Two Loves (Steeplechase 1973 - see picture above)- the smell, look and feel of that gloss black cover changed my life forever even before I'd left the shop (Ray's in London in 1978) and then when I finally spun the vinyl I was totally hooked. Actually I have quite a narrow piano trio taste that starts at Bill Evans and now meanders through Europe and the Americas taking in most of what's going on up to the edge of the avant garde (is that term still used??). I can tolerate some electronics but I have to say I'm quite an acoustic purist. The addiction is real I think - I'm driven to buy the music to get an even better hit than the last purchase but in the world of the itunes 30 second review and my other obsession of checking out the album's on-line reviews before clicking the one click buy button, you can probably say it's not that bad and even quite informed.

Music is my life's glue - without it I'd probably be muttering to myself in an institution's vegetable garden in white pyjamas waiting for my next visitor. Good piano trio music is the medication my doctor would be bringing me once he'd realised I'd popped my straight jacket.

I've learnt that the deeper you dig the more rewards you'll find. It's easy to think of contemporary piano trio music as being dominated by Keith Jarrett, Brad Mehldau, ECM, EST and Bad Plus (all of whom I love by the way) but these are only the tip of the iceberg. In the deepest corners of itunes (since finding one of my CDs on a Russian mp3 site selling for 15 bucks a few years back I'm a believer in buying music legally) I've found some music that'll be on my ipod until my dying day and give me hours of insight into what beauty, for me at least, really sounds like.

So, enjoy the reviews - they're not ordered in any way, just randomly entered when I get the time and inspiration.