Piano Trio – Page 5 – musicophilesblog – From Keith Jarrett to Johannes Brahms

Jeff Hamilton Trio – Live!

Back from my Christmas holiday hiatus with my family, its high time for a new blog post.

And I promise, I won’t be bothering you with more seasonal music (well, until Easter that is, where I’ll certainly write about Bach’s different Passions).

Jeff Hamilton

I’ve previously mentioned Jeff Hamilton several times. He has played on two of my Essential Jazz albums, among others. He just has an unbeatable swing. I had the pleasure of hearing him live once with Ray Brown and Gene Harris, a concert I still remember 20 years later.

Beyond Ray Brown and Gene Harris, Hamilton has also played with Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Krall (he’s one of the main reasons several of her albums are good), and Count Basie.

My last blog post mentioning Jeff Hamilton was Montreux Alexander Live , with Monty Alexander, which like the album I’m just about to mention, was taken from fellow music lover JoeWhip’s recommendations on Audiostream.

Live! (1996 Mons Records)

This album had been nominated by Jazz critics in Germany in 1997 as best Jazz album. And it really is a very fine achievement.

There are killer uptempo tracks like Apple Honey, where Jeff can show off his technical skills (however, unlike some other drummers who like to impress their audience, with Hamilton, the skills will always just serve the music). According to Jazz Times, this track is nearly 360 bpm. I haven’t verified, but it is certainly very impressive.

But then again, there are also soft ballads like Time Passes On, which are every bit as enjoyable as the fast tracks.

And you have to check out the great drum solo at the end of A Night In Tunisia!

Overall, this is traditional mainstream Jazz, extremely well done, and with the additional energy of a live event. Recommended!

My rating: 4 stars

You can find it here (Qobuz, which I’m happy to report has found an investor and will continue in business for at least the foreseeable future).

Giovanni Mirabassi (one of my preferred Jazz piano trios) – Terra Furiosa

Giovanni Mirabassi

I’ve mentioned Giovanni Mirabassi already in my 25 essential Jazz albums. I consider him one of the best contemporary Jazz pianists.

Unfortunately his masterpiece Architectures is a bit hard to get these days as the rights were sold to a Japanese label.

Terra Furiosa (Discograph/Minimum 2008)

Luckily he has done other recordings that are much easier to purchase, like this 2008 recording, Terra Furiosa.

On bass, we have Gianluca Renzi who still plays with Mirabassi today, and the American drummer Leon Parker.

Giovanni Mirabassi Gianluca Renzi Leon Parker Terra Furiosa 2008

On this album, you clearly hear the influences of the late Bill Evans style, and also Enrico Pieranunzi. That said, he’s made something very personal out of all this, already given that he essentially plays only his own compositions.

My favorite songs is Last Minutes, where Gianluca Renzi gets some time for a beautiful bass intro, turning into a samba-like rhythm when Parker kicks in.

But even beyond this song, you’ll find stunning melodies, seamless interplay between three outstanding musicians. The music never stops evolving, and while the album remains in a certain mood most of the time, there is never any feeling of boredom at all, there just too much going on.

My rating: 4 stars

You can find it here (Qobuz) and here (HDTracks)

My Top 5 Christmas Jazz Albums

After my previous post on the Christmas Oratorio, I thought let’s continue the seasonal music a bit more, but expand to Jazz.

Warning: Cheesy Music Ahead!

Yes, obviously, non-classical Christmas music usually is rather cheesy. If you take it to the extremes, it can feel like a bit too much.

But let’s face it, isn’t this the time for “a bit too much”?

The trick is to find the albums that are still giving you the Christmas feel without completely overdoing it. I’ve looked around quite a bit and found 5 albums that are certainly a bit kitsch, but you (or at least I) can listen to an entire album without the feeling of just too much sugar.

Holly Cole: Baby, It’s Cold Outside (Alert Records 2001)

Holly Cole Baby It's Cold Outside

I’m actually surprised I haven’t mentioned Holly on my blog yet, as I like her music very much. She’s located somewhere between Jazz and Pop/Singer Songwriter, and I really like her voice.

My favorite song on this album is the track that is probably given you the least holiday spirit, a cover of Merle Haggard’s If We Make It Through December. You can see from this song already that this is not your typical Christmas album.

Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas (Verve 1960)

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OK, not a lot of kitsch here, but one of the fastest versions of Jingle Bells ever (OK, not as fast as Barbara Streisand here, but still pretty fast). The track selection is a little bit more classical than Holly Cole, so you get all your Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer, Let It Snow, and Winter Wonderlands, but with the usual charm and swing of Ella’s beautiful voice.

Diana Krall: Christmas Songs (Verve 2005)

Diana Krall Christmas Songs Verve

This is actually already the second Christmas album by Mrs Krall, the first one is a 1999 EP called Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.

Diana Krall’s voice is just perfect for Christmas songs, and the not too overloaded Clayton/Hamilton Orchestra is doing a great job here (although poor drummer Jeff Hamilton probably get’s a bit bored here). OK, you get your occasional dose if strings, but they don’t dominate the album too much.

My favorite song on this album is Winter Wonderland, which has a beautiful swing to it.

Emilie-Claire Barlow: Winter Wonderland (Victor 2006)

Emilie-Claire Barlow doesn’t have the same near celebrity status as her fellow Canadian Diana Krall, but she’s also a very fine singer. She has a very particular tone, much brighter than all the other singers listed above, if you’ve heard her once, you’ll recognize her immediately.

One particularity of this album is that she turns Sleigh Ride into a Samba.

Emilie-Claire Barlow Winter Wonderland

Vince Guaraldi: A Charlie Brown Christmas (Fantasy 1965)

And given that I’m a fan of the Jazz Piano Trio, a non-vocal classic had to be on this list. You’ve never heard O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree) swinging better!

Vince Guaraldi A Charlie Brown Christmas

You can find the albums above here:

Holly Cole (ProStudimasters)

Ella Fitzgerald (Qobuz)

Diana Krall (Qobuz)

Emily-Claire Barlow (HDtracks)

Vince Guaraldi (Acoustic Sounds)

Montreux Alexander Live!

Monty Alexander

For whatever reason, although I really like piano trios as every regular reader of my blog will have understood by now, Monty Alexander flew under the radar screen for me until rather recently

Luckily, some other music lovers pointed me to him, and the trigger for purchasing this particular album was fellow Jazz addict JoeWhip’s entry to Audiostream’s Lovely Recordings, a new feature on the site: (The rest of his list is also very much worth exploring, I had a bit more than half of it already and purchased most of the rest after reading the list).

Montreux Alexander Live! (MPS 1985/2014)

Montreux Alexander - The Monty Alexander Trio Live! At The Montreux Festival MPS

What a nice recommendation!

Live albums often are either really good or really dull. The dull ones often just try to hard, or don’t really capture the spirit and feeling of the concert and leave you uninvolved. The good ones are just the opposite.

Luckily, the latter applies here, you feel like you’re actually sitting in the concert and the groove get’s you immediately.

Jeff Hamilton is a great asset obviously, his ability to make any kind of music swing is just outstanding (he also plays, in a very similar style on Ray Brown Live At the Loa, one of my 25 Essential Jazz albums).

John Clayton is not that well known, but he is a Ray Brown pupil and you can hear it.

I can only agree with JoeWhip on his assessment that this is music that will make you smile no matter how down you are.

Recommended.

My rating: 4 stars

You can find it here (Qobuz)

Tord Gustavsen Trio: The Ground – Atmospheric Trio Jazz from Norway

ECM

Enough ink has been spilled on Manfred Eicher’s outstanding Jazz label from Munich, Germany. He obviously was smart enough to land a superstar like Keith Jarrett, but they’ve been such an important driving force for contemporary jazz (and classical music) that you owe it to yourself to check out each new ECM release. To be fair, for me their output is hit and miss, on average every 2nd album I just love, every other is not my cup of tea. But I never regret checking them out.

Tord Gustavsen

Like Helge Lien (reviewed here), Tord Gustavsen comes from Norway. That, plus the fact that they both won an important Norwegian Jazz award, is probably the only apparent commonality between the two (plus the fact that they both have played with Silje Nergaard at some point, probably a mandatory rite of passage for Norwegian jazz pianists).

Lien is much more energetic, and experimental. Gustavsen in his arrangements in a way represents the typical ECM house sound, atmospheric, sometimes a bit detached, and extremely well recorded.

He has released a number of albums, mostly in trio, but also more recently with Saxophone, however, this 2004-5 album remains my favorite album of his.

The Ground

The Ground was Gustavsen’s 2nd ECM album, after the equally beautiful Changing Places, which gave him quite some visibility.

His style is really the opposite of what was developed by Esbjörn Svensson Trio, his neighbor from Sweden. It is very minimalistic, laid back. He has been called “the Satie of Jazz”. This is music to savor late at night, with a glass of single malt (I’d recommend a Caol Ila 12).

Critics around the globe mainly loved this album, calling the music “shimmering” (the Village Voice), and quoting the ” liquid, flowing quality of his motion” (AllAboutJazz). You did find some critical voices as well, usually finding this a little bit too laid back, or some even called it boring.

Well, obviously if you want high energy jazz that brings you to the edges of contemporary creativity, look elsewhere. But if you, like me, appreciate the ECM sound, this album is really worth checking out.

Actually, I’m a big fan of the very minimalistic and modern ECM cover art in general, but on this particular album they really nailed it. The blue, unfocused feeling you get from the cover is exactly what the music will do with you. You’ll get lost in space and time (the Caol Ila certainly helping….).

Note that the recording quality of this album is truly outstanding, so if you have a good hi-fi, you’ll enjoy it twice as much.

My rating: 4 stars

You can download it here (Qobuz) or here (Gubemusic)

Eeriness or How To Summarize Michael Wollny’s New Release in One Word

Michael Wollny

I’ve already praised his latest live album in my 25 essential Jazz albums. Michael Wollny, 37, is certainly one of the greatest talents in Jazz Germany has to offer these days.

So I was very glad when I was pointed to his latest album he just released, Nachtfahrten (literally, night rides or night drives).

Really, you’re going to say, my last post was about Chopin’s Nocturnes, and here comes another one about music of (or for) the night? Well, this wasn’t on purpose.

Nachtfahrten

In any case, when you listen to this album, think much more Debussy’s nocturnes, or Scriabin, than Chopin. There is none of the peacefulness of the Chopin around, the word that comes to mind listening to this new album is the beautiful English word “eery”, actually, you never feel fully safe listening to this album.

Where does this eeriness come from? Well, very slow tempi, dark harmonics, a very light touch by Eric Schaefer on drums, but all this doesn’t even come close to describing the feelings you’ll get from this album.

The track titles like Nachtmahr, a rather unusual German translation of nightmare, Feu Follet, French for will-o’-the-wisp, Marion (named after Marion Crane, the blonde victim of the Psycho shower scene), or Metzengerstein, the name of Edgar Allen Poe’s first novel, don’t really help. Well, you get the idea.

There are some slightly lighter titles like Ellen, which is one of the few occasions where the trio gets to show that they are able to swing really well, but even these don’t break the overall dark mood of the album.

Several journalists have asked the question whether this is Jazz, Pop, or contemporary classical. Well, honestly, who cares. It is impressive music, full of a strange and irritating energy, that will draw you into the music. This is anything but background music for a cocktail party. It needs your full attention (and dimmed lights).

My rating: 4 stars

Two videos to give you an example, one with Michael commenting on the album, unfortunately in German only.

You can find it here (Qobuz) or here (Highresaudio)

My Top10 Jazz Covers Of Pop Songs

Pop/Rock music in Jazz

The usage of pop music in Jazz is actually nothing new, to be fair, many of what are considered today’s Jazz standards were initially “pop” songs of their times.

In my list below, I’ve taken some kind of liberty with the definition of “Pop/Rock” song (in a nutshell it is just another list of music I love).

The entire list started with me listening to Christian McBride’s recent live album I just reviewed and particularly his “Car Wash” song, his version of this 1970s disco classic.

Don’t pay any attention to the numbering, this is just completely random, no ranking implied.

I’m pretty sure I’ve missed many others, please add your favorites in the comments!

1. Christian McBride – Car Wash

As mentioned before, from the great Album Live At The Village Vanguard

2. Brad Mehldau – Exit Music For a Film

I’ve already listed Brad Mehldau in my 25 Essential Jazz Albums, and he actually has two pop covers on there, I could have chosen both Nick Drake’s Riverman and this cover from Radiohead.

3. Sophie Hunger – I Put A Spell On You

I’ve already reviewed this great Nina Simone tribute album, and this version of the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins classic is my favorite song on there. Love it!

4. The Bad Plus – Smells Like Teen Spirit

I haven’t mentioned this American trio on my blog yet, interestingly enough. They do a lot of cover versions which are usually a lot of fun, like this Nirvana classic from their 2003 album These Are The Vistas.

5. Gretchen Parlato – Holding Back the Years

The American singer Gretchen Parlato has really found her very own style, you’ll recognize her immediately. She deserves even more attention than she currently gets!

And as much as I hate Simply Red in general, I really like this cover a lot.

6. Marcin Wasilewski Trio – Diamonds and Pearls

Marcin Wasilewski is a great Polish pianist, his trio recordings on ECM are very beautiful, and he’s played quite a bit on other great recordings as well. Here he’s covering Prince.

7. Holly Cole – Tennessee Waltz

Is Holly Cole actually a Jazz singer? Well, probably borderline. Who cares, this album is amazingly beautiful. One of my favorite songs on here is the 1940s classic Tennessee Waltz.

8. Musica Nuda – Roxane

Musica Nuda, the Italian duo of Petra Magoni (vocals) and Ferruccio Spinet (double bass) is not very well-known outside of Italy, which is a pity, as it is really astounding to hear what you can do with this rather improbable “nude” combination of voice and bass, without any piano or drums. The do cover quite a lot of pop songs, The Police’s Roxane is just one beautiful example.

9. Youn Sun Nah – Enter Sandman

Youn Sun Nah also has a great track on Autour de Nina (mentioned above), but her own albums are equally impressive, e.g. this album Same Girl on ACT, which gives us this beautiful Metallica cover.