After an elegant serving of Scandinavian venison with a dill foam (see below review), Eric Legnini could be mistaken for a triple cheeseburger with extra fries in his approach but you'd be wrong. This collection of grooves has classic 60s and 70s' piano funk influences in their robustness and effervescence but his left and right hands, the drummer and bass player have certainly travelled all the main routes and side roads from Silvertown to Tynerville ending at the present day jazzpianotropolis to make this CD a massive waft of fresh air. And trust me, Fender Rhodes don't sound like that straight out of the box - he's been tweaking those pick-ups for maximum soul juice.
I've always admired people who speak on established themes with new enthusiasm, interpretations and belief and this is what it feels like listening to this exuberant music. How does he make all those mothers of all funk chords sound so fresh, as if played for the first time? But it's not all extrovert contemporary swing, his mellow side reveals an uncommon sensitivity and his choice of song like Stevie Wonder's Secret Life of Plants and the standard Darn That Dream show him to be a 360 degree musician with a mixed palette of moods and tempos. The drums and bass also deserve mention, finding all the right accents and then some you'd never thought were there - they're both masters of the art. Legnini's reconstruction of Shadow Of Your Smile into a threat full of foreboding hints of a darker more disturbed side that I suspect fuels the rest of his music, making it beautifully balanced on the edge of the precipice. For more than 55 minutes Eric and his trio make this planet a better place to be.
Do you remember as a child running down hill so fast that it felt like you were going to fall over but didn't and how good that felt? Enter Mr Legnini and his trio.
No comments:
Post a Comment