KEVIN BRADY TRIO - Zeitgeist

I’ve recently got into the fabulous pianist Bill Carrothers from his I Love Paris CD (2006) that proves that good music like good acting just needs someone to look you directly in the eye and speak honestly from the heart without affectation. So I was happy to see him as pianist on new release Zeitgeist under the name of Irish drummer Kevin Brady’s Trio. It’s an absolute delight of beautifully played jazz full of great tunes soulfully rendered and all with a story to tell. That Russian Thing, Waltz Macabre and the deeply ruminant Church Of The Open Air in title alone, all conjure up interesting cinematic images across a range of genres that will have you absorbed. Carrothers is a seriously top draw pianist – with a sometimes Bley-like light touch and elegiac John Taylor style voicings that span both hands – he manages to evoke the style and period of the songs, especially on standards, whilst imbuing them with his individual contemporary edge and oh yes, he swings like the best of them, with the spirit of the great pre-bebop swing pianists like Hines, Cole, Ellington, Garner and Wilson in attack and clarity of line – check out the romping block chords in Home Row. In contrast, on the collectively written Zeitgeist and the impressionistic version of Shorter’s Little Nile he draws on more contemporary even avant-garde piano influences - they've all been refracted through Carrothers' diverse musical prism.

There’s a prevailing mood of freshness, mutual respect and drive that all serve to tell these 10 very different musical stories culminating in the moving Lake Superior homage, Gitchee Gumee, a 7 minute investigation of the soul, full of gospel inflections and probing right hand lines all underpinned by a slow pulsing foundation built by Brady and the stella bass playing of Dave Redmond that will make you murmur ahhhhh out loud as the final chord fades. The all hearing, light and shade drummer, Brady, is a new discovery for me and I can see why this marriage works – both (and I should include bassist Redmond here who is their equal) have a respect for the trio lineage starting way back before any of us were born, both swing like crazy and both have the toolkit and chops to wrap everything up in a sound that yes, feels like it is the Zeitgeist of the jazz piano trio of today. I always hesitate for a few nano seconds when I see trios headed by drummers for obvious reasons, but have no fear, this one is as good as they get and in many respects better than most.

Do you remember going away traveling for a while and then eventually coming home and reaching for an album to play to settle yourself back into reality and the promise of new things ahead? This is what you’d choose.

AARON CHOULAI TRIO - Ranu

You soon realize that the jazz piano trio format is now pretty universal and adaptable across genres when you hear Papua New Guinea born Aaron Choulai playing a deeply moving 10 minute reinterpretation of folk rockster Neil Young’s Tell Me Why. This, his third CD, Australia based Choulai’s Ranu is a delight of fresh perspectives, airy excursions, romantic ruminations and melodic meditations underpinned by a complete technique and mastery of the tradition – he’s going to be a significant other well beyond the Antipodes. More than ‘ably assisted’, more like ‘partnered by’, full toned, bluesy Sam Anning on bass, check out Bedira, and ever mindful Rory McDugal or Ben Vanderwal on drums, hear Deep Mountain Gone, this trio opens up a wonderfully full rummage bin of over an hour of new moods and atmospheres for the trio lover. He has a lovely contemplative gait on Radiohead's The Tourist and Dreams Of Paper and excels in disguise and near impertinence on the two standards, the deliciously re-harmonised slow You Go To My Head and a jaunty I’ll Be Seeing You with its cheeky extended coda reminiscent of Miles and Wynton on Bye Bye Blackbird at the Blackhawk. The intimate White Scarf is a deeply original, threeway contemplation of space, texture and resonance sounding at times like a medieval courting ritual full of ebb, flow and mystery. Beautifully recorded, conceptually strong and full of maturity beyond his years, the channeled emotion of Ranu is going to be a well thumbed, if digital files can be so, piece of data on my hard drive. It’ll soon be in all your playlists regardless of genre or mood.

Do you remember becoming more and more aware of the transition from winter to spring and feeling that the air smelt different and there was a new quality to the daylight? Ah, Aaron – bringing in the new like a good old soul.

URI CAINE TRIO - Live At The Village Vanguard

There are boys and there are men, there are masters and there are apprentices and there are jazz clubs and there is the Village Vanguard. During his illustrious and varied musical career hybrid piano muse Uri Caine seldom makes straight ahead trio recordings but thank the lord he decided to make one in Greenwich Village in 2004 with the stella Drew Gress on bass and Ben Perowsky on drums. I’ve only been to the Village Vanguard once (Eric Reed on piano - marvelous) but that was enough to feel the spirit, see that famous Exit sign that Paul, Bill and Scott sat under and listen to giants. This album belongs to the category of great recordings made in the club that should be in most record collections (Evans / Coltrane / Rollins/ Pepper / Henderson etc) with over 70 minutes of some of the best modern jazz piano trio music you’ll hear, beautifully arranged and executed with improvisational mastery and the sound of surprise by the truckload. Immune to the fashions and trends the current batch of twenty and thirtysomething piano trio-ists can succumb to, Caine and the trio deliver on all fronts: improvisation, imagination, swing, drive, invention and a good dose of irreverence.

The first five minutes and 30 seconds of the super fast, intensely swinging sometimes playful Cheek to Cheek that see Caine careening around bends like a latter day Michael Schumacher are worth the price of the album alone. Sometimes reminding me of Chick Corea on Now He Sings and even Andre Previn’s early Contemporary label trios in attack and classically polished fingers on the standards Cheek To Cheek, I Thought About You and All The Way, there’s not a dull, marking time moment amongst these pearls. You’ll love the angular BushWack (a tribute to 'our Commander in Chief’ – remember this was recorded in 2004), the free exploration of Stiletto and the overdriven Monkish themed Snaggletooth full of moments of rhythmic serendipity between the three musicians. Shorter’s Nefertiti is given a full examination and reaches a swinging intensity seldom heard these days. Caine is not afraid to run the trio gamut from Cecil Taylor to Ramsey Lewis with no small amount of aplomb.

If you want to go past the standard 4½ minute track into the fertile ground of the 8 and 9 minute live voyage this is the place to stop and revel in piano trio music in the tradition, on the edge and from the soul.

PS:..and as if the sound engineer read my mind s/he leaves 30 seconds of between sets audience banter at the end of the CD...and I'm truly there at 178, 7th Avenue South.

AVISHAI COHEN TRIO - Gently Disturbed

Imagine a thoroughbred racehorse on top form, groomed and toned to perfection but still possessing the instinct to make every stride count and you’ll begin to get the picture of Israeli bassist, Avishai Cohen and his trio. Gently Disturbed is a master class in music of any description. Thriving on unison lines, multiple layers of tonal textures that borrow from jazz, classical and Jewish folk forms, frenetic rhythms that verge on the edge of entropy but always bring you home safely and complex compositional structures like Variations in G Minor, it will take me years to uncover the mille feuille of this music. When they do take a breath the gentle renditions of Jewish songs like La Baiom Velo Balyla and Umray make their roots clear while still imbuing them with the jazz signature. Mention must be made of the impeccable piano playing of Shai Maestro - yes with a name like that you only really have one destiny. His fingers drip with arpeggios, counterpoint, rhythm and romance. Cohen himself makes the higher register of the bass, the dusty end as my old friend Mike used to call it, sound as easy to play as a 3 stringed ukulele. On first listening it may all appear frantic but you soon hear the subtleties - Seattle is full of longing, Chutzpah is full of ..well yes, chutzpah and The Ever Evolving Etude beset with blind corners and offset accents that will keep you guessing. Not for the fainthearted, Gently Disturbed will either blow your mind or leave you elated – there’s no middle ground here but both options appeal.

Do you remember when you were a child….sorry no point of past reference here. Incredible synchronicity.

HAROLD LÓPEZ-NUSSA TRIO - Herencia

If like me you've always wanted to go to Cuba to listen beyond the tourist servings of Son, Canción and Social Club to hear what the cutting edge of Cuban jazz has to say, Harold Lopez-Nussa and his trio are a good place to start. Classically trained but sounding as if he'd be as comfortable in the basement as the concert hall, Nussa has chops a plenty and synthesises the diverse melting pot of Cuban styles into a unified and driving celebration of the jazz trio Cubano style. With his brother Ruy on drums and the powerhouse generator of Felipe Cabrera on bass, the trio easily switches from romping left handed bass/piano unison steamroller, La Jungla, to yearning explorations of tonal colour, Herencia, from introspective pop reinterpretation, Tears In Heaven, to street march, Timbeando and make it all sound like one musical concept. Never outstaying his welcome when he stretches out in the groove yard, his classical technique enables him to add new flourishes, codas and ensemble sections that give the music a contemporary but totally rooted feel like on En el lsa where he tastily adds ensemble voices to enhance the chorus. Regularly playing in Cuban singing legend's Omara Portuondo backing band, she sings on one track, Es Mas, Te Perdono, sounding for all the world to me like a tribute to the recently passed Mercedes Sosa. The final track, the solo tribute Mama, reveals the breadth of his technique and emotional scope all fused into one beautiful rendition well beyond his years. Make no mistake, Harold is the best thing to happen to Cuban piano jazz since Gonzalo Rubalcaba and he brings a new voice full of good tunes, great improvisation, respect for the tradition, humour and cutting edge textures to make him a stayer.

Do you remember hearing Buena Vista Social Club for the first time (before it joined the ranks of Gypsy Kings overplayed musak), and wondering when someone would embody all of that spirit into something utterly brilliant, beautiful, articulate and contemporary?

ALBORAN TRIO - Near Gale

I’ve seen some reviews saying the Alboran Trio are stepping into the void left by EST after the tragic death of Esbjorn Svensson but I don’t see it at all. Led by Italian pianist Paolo Paliaga (though ‘led’ is not the right word here), Alboran have a distinct style and approach that to my mind displays no other ambition than to play beautiful trio music. They use classical, jazz and folk styles that combine like the last rays of the sun reflecting on the gentle swell of a lake in the late afternoon. Perfectly recorded with as much attention to silence and separation of the instruments as to the sounds they make, the intimate conversations between the three flow from movement to movement as if each were a perfectly formed sonata – Delle Cose Nascoste/Autumn Mist. Paliaga’s piano, Contenti’s bass and Biolcati’s drums seem to work as one, seamlessly mixing melody, harmony and rhythm that at times evoke images from the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Black, Caspian, Dead, Adriatic and North Seas in a rich mix of limpid, crystalline tunes ranging from storm to still. Water in all its forms and reflective abilities is the theme for me with Alboran. Without proselytizing they seem to be saying, life is a rich diverse mix and yes it is good so dive in. I’ll try and review their first CD, Meltemi, also excellent, here at a later date.

Do you remember the last time you had some really excellent Italian food where the balance between the wine, pasta, water, salad, bread and conversation seemed to elevate the moment to something transcendent…?