PABLO HELD - Forest of oblivion

If you had around 15 bucks to spare and wanted to make a contribution to the advancement of the human race you could do a lot worse than buy Pablo Held’s first CD, Forest of Oblivion. I’m staggered that a 23 year old (21 when he cut this disc - he was winning jazz piano prizes at 12) and his trio can make music as beautiful as this. Whatever Germany is doing in its music education system to help produce talents such as Pablo (and Friedrich and Allhof to name but two more) other countries, please take serious note. I really can’t fault anything on this near perfect rendition of piano trio music - the impressionistic lyricism of Ana Maria, the controlled post-bop of swinging Hand Jive, the stately beauty of Melody. Much more than ably assisted by bassist Robert Landfermann and drummer Jonas Burgwinkel, this is a stella trio you’ll never regret listening to – try the Hancock inspired Phase II or the probing mood swings of Two Questions One Answer. I see that one of his teachers was one of Britain’s national treasures at the piano, my hero, John Taylor - I can hear his influence but I can also hear the souls of three young men cutting through all the transient flutter in this world and making a statement of intent to help us all appreciate beauty and truth.

I once said to my young cousin Tom that Muddy Water’s 1977 version of Mannish Boy would be on my iPod until my dying day. It still will be Tom, but I’d like to lend you 15 bucks if you have 120 Megs free to make room for Pablo the peacemaker.

JÜRGEN FRIEDRICH - Pollock

Jackson Pollock’s work has often been fertile ground to explore for contemporary jazz musicians who find his work analogous with the rhythms, intensity, irreverence and improvisational qualities of the genre and German pianist Jürgen Friedrich’s, new CD Pollock, is no exception. Teaming up once again with top drawer American bass and drums; John Hebert and Tony Moreno, this collection of deeply reflective musical conversations takes great strides forward in terms of confidence and quality from his previous release Seismo which was at times fey and unfocused. The trio now sound strong with the conviction to explore the idea and spirit of the pieces, not please the crowd with trendy trio sound swatches.

The opener, Drift, starts Debussy-esque and then wanders down other avenues of more intense trenchant passages which Moreno underscores on the tom toms rather than the snare to keep the rolling, wave-like qualities of the piece surging over you. A beautifully reconsidered seven minute offering of ‘Round Midnight seems to drift in and out of different tempos with Friedrich letting the melody directly inform the harmony and rhythm more than the traditional harmonic structure itself – it sounds like the song as sung. Ripple, one of several strong originals, has soulful undertones, blue notes and classical cadences that seem to typify this trio – a breath of fresh improvised air with multiple influences built on a foundation of sensitivity, collaboration and conversation. Pollock is one of three short collectively improvised/composed pieces and evokes the idea of the master at work in which we hear the more disturbed, restless side of the Pollock persona.

The final Flauschangriff has the in and out of tempo feel of ‘Round Midnight though with less subtle, more strident juxtaposition between structure and improvisation – it’s a lovely meandering contemplation of melody and harmony and makes you mindful that this isn’t just another manufactured trio hitting the scene. It’s a special musical unit striving to find new ways to make the strings of the piano and bass and skins of the drums and bronze alloy of the cymbals sound nearer to the outpourings of the human soul - something I suspect Pollock was trying to do with paint on canvas.

BILL EVANS TRIO - 1960 Birdland Sessions

This isn’t a review as such. For me reviewing a Bill Evans album would be akin to reviewing my sister, my wife – the music, as are the people, is just too personal and entwined around my life to find anything like the right words but…

…I do have a story about the music in this new and incredibly good value re-release – Bill Evans 1960 Birdland Sessions. When I was first playing jazz gigs around London in the mid 1980s packing my doublebass into my VW Beetle I was playing with a pianist, Chris Lowe, from north London. He was a great pianist and also a Bill Evans aficionado – he taught me so much and told me so many stories about Bill and the trio and their performances at Ronnie Scotts in the 60s and 70s he frequently went to see. One day after practicing at his house he pulled out what looked like a homemade rough cardboard vinyl album sleeve – it contained a radio broadcast bootleg of the Bill Evans trio with Scott Lafaro and Paul Motian at Birdland in 1960. The first track he played was Tadd Dameron’s Our Delight. It was the most exciting music I’d ever heard. I stood transfixed - a turbo driven trio going for broke and swinging like the world was about to end with a sense of purpose I’d never heard the likes of before. Such intensity and clarity of thought forever breaking, for me at least, the marketing people’s slant of putting Bill Evans into the ‘For Lovers’ ballads box. I looked at Chris as if he had in his hand the Holy Grail of music. My love affair with jazz trios and what they could be capable of delivering to my ears and heart was cemented.

The badly recorded but somehow vital air shots seemed to strip down the music to two things; swing and lyricism. Lafaro sounding intense and focused, Motian like a modern day Gene Krupa giving the high-hat more than its usual attention. I asked Chris to play it several times over the following years but I lost touch with it and later, him. I still recalled it frequently, that unison, near-demented block chord intro forever etched on my soul, and sometimes I searched for it in specialist jazz magazines but I never found it. Then life interrupted and it got relegated somewhere deeper into my memory until now….thanks to this re-issue.

Our Delight - six minutes thirty-eight seconds of utter unrelenting jazz magic (not to mention the other hour of outstanding tracks from the vintage Evan’s period) and wow, that intro, welcome back.