Map To The Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro
By Matt Collar
A technically adroit pianist with an ear for sensitive, emotive accompaniment, Billy Childs has built a career primarily around backing other artists, including trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, vocalist Dianne Reeves, and trumpeter Chris Botti. Although he's recorded a number of superb solo dates, on 2014's Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, Childs once again sets himself just outside of the spotlight as he gathers various musical friends to pay homage to his longtime idol, the late singer/songwriter Laura Nyro. Having discovered Nyro's emotive and lyrically thoughtful genre-crossing folk recordings in his teens while studying jazz and classical music at the University of Southern California's Community School for the Performing Arts, Childs would eventually get to work with Nyro prior to her death from ovarian cancer in 1997. One gets the sense that in an ideal world, Childs might have recorded this album with Nyro herself as a kind of retrospective anthology. In lieu of that poignant fantasy, here Childs, along with producer and former USC Community Schools classmate Larry Klein, have reinterpreted a handful of Nyro's songs, taking an ambitious, cross-genre approach that balances the intimate folk of her original recordings with a layered jazz and symphonic pop sound. Along with the aforementioned Reeves and Botti, Childs is joined by such like-minded luminaries as vocalist Renee Fleming, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, singer/songwriter Rickie Lee Jones, bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and others. Ultimately, with Map to the Treasure, Childs doesn't simply reimagine Nyro's songs as elevate them in a spiritual and heartfelt celebration of her life and music.
Peter Zak
The Disciple
By C. Michael Bailey
Pianist Peter Zak had a transcontinental shift from Los Angeles to Columbus and Kent Ohio and, finally, to New Your City, where he has remained since 1989. He has released critically well-received CDs for the Danish SteepleChase label: The Eternal Triangle (2012), Nordic Noon (2011) and Down East (2011). He returns with the present trio recording, The Disciple.
The jazz market is a small land finicky one. It is really no longer possible to simply put together a piano trio recording of original and standards that stands out from the battlefield clotted with the same. The smarter artists, like Zak, add a program or theme to their recordings, something that gives an otherwise disparate collection of pieces some continuity or integrity. In the The Disciple, this integrating factor are compositions by pianists Zak has be influenced by, and that list is impressive.
Zak opens The Disciple with a circular performance of Chick Corea's "The Loop." He follows this with one of three originals he peppers the recording with. Representing Elmo Hope, Zak selects "Barfly," Hope's "'Round Midnight." Zak and his responsive trio of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Willie Jones III give the piece its necessary crepuscular after-hours spirit.
Horace Silver's "Nutville" is provided a solid minor-key accompaniment over which Zak waxes poetic with hard bop riffs and roars. Truly inspired is Zak tossing in a Scriabin Prelude (Op. 35 #2) into the mix making this quite an interesting collection. Performances of Herbie Hancock's Requiem," Hampton Hawes' "Jackie" and Thelonious Monk's "Criss Cross" amp up the drama.
Track Listing:
By C. Michael Bailey
Pianist Peter Zak had a transcontinental shift from Los Angeles to Columbus and Kent Ohio and, finally, to New Your City, where he has remained since 1989. He has released critically well-received CDs for the Danish SteepleChase label: The Eternal Triangle (2012), Nordic Noon (2011) and Down East (2011). He returns with the present trio recording, The Disciple.
The jazz market is a small land finicky one. It is really no longer possible to simply put together a piano trio recording of original and standards that stands out from the battlefield clotted with the same. The smarter artists, like Zak, add a program or theme to their recordings, something that gives an otherwise disparate collection of pieces some continuity or integrity. In the The Disciple, this integrating factor are compositions by pianists Zak has be influenced by, and that list is impressive.
Zak opens The Disciple with a circular performance of Chick Corea's "The Loop." He follows this with one of three originals he peppers the recording with. Representing Elmo Hope, Zak selects "Barfly," Hope's "'Round Midnight." Zak and his responsive trio of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Willie Jones III give the piece its necessary crepuscular after-hours spirit.
Horace Silver's "Nutville" is provided a solid minor-key accompaniment over which Zak waxes poetic with hard bop riffs and roars. Truly inspired is Zak tossing in a Scriabin Prelude (Op. 35 #2) into the mix making this quite an interesting collection. Performances of Herbie Hancock's Requiem," Hampton Hawes' "Jackie" and Thelonious Monk's "Criss Cross" amp up the drama.
Track Listing:
The Loop; Montserrat; Barfly; Nutville; Prelude, Op. 35 #2; Requiem; Jackie; Criss Cross; Nightfall in Kandy; The disciple.
Personnel:
Personnel:
Peter Zak: piano; Peter Washington: bass; Willie Jones III: drums.
Geoffrey Keezer
Heart Of The Piano
By Stephen Thomas Erlewine
The title Heart of the Piano makes it plain: after over a decade of collaborations, pianist Geoffrey Keezer has returned with a solo acoustic piano session. Perhaps the title also suggests something sentimental -- and he does dedicate four of the songs to individual members of his family -- but this isn't a collection of sticky love songs. Keezer takes some happy, subtle risks with his material, opening the album with Rush's classic rock warhorse "Limelight," working his way to moody selections from Peter Gabriel ("Come Talk to Me") and Alanis Morissette ("Still"), and finding time for KT Tunstall's joyous "Suddenly I See" and Christian McBride's "Lullaby for a Ladybug" while still working in a couple of originals as well. Keezer lets all of these songs breathe -- sometimes speeding up, sometimes drawing things out either with tension or a luxurious, lax sense of dreaminess -- dancing around the melody without neglecting it, gliding up and down the keys but skirting a sense of indulgence. It's a sweet, slyly mischievous set that truly lets Keezer show a full range of emotions without ever seeming like he's showing off.
George Colligan
Geoffrey Keezer
Heart Of The Piano
By Stephen Thomas Erlewine
The title Heart of the Piano makes it plain: after over a decade of collaborations, pianist Geoffrey Keezer has returned with a solo acoustic piano session. Perhaps the title also suggests something sentimental -- and he does dedicate four of the songs to individual members of his family -- but this isn't a collection of sticky love songs. Keezer takes some happy, subtle risks with his material, opening the album with Rush's classic rock warhorse "Limelight," working his way to moody selections from Peter Gabriel ("Come Talk to Me") and Alanis Morissette ("Still"), and finding time for KT Tunstall's joyous "Suddenly I See" and Christian McBride's "Lullaby for a Ladybug" while still working in a couple of originals as well. Keezer lets all of these songs breathe -- sometimes speeding up, sometimes drawing things out either with tension or a luxurious, lax sense of dreaminess -- dancing around the melody without neglecting it, gliding up and down the keys but skirting a sense of indulgence. It's a sweet, slyly mischievous set that truly lets Keezer show a full range of emotions without ever seeming like he's showing off.
George Colligan
Ask Me Tomorrow
By Brent Black / www.criticaljazz.com
The artistic evolution of George Colligan, Ask Me Tomorrow is a stunning triumph!
Next to a solo piano release, the piano trio may be the most unforgiving ensemble presentations in improvisational music. The harmonic equivalent of tap dancing in a melodic minefield. This is an easy statement to make when you are an admittedly cynical critic that has reviewed more piano trios in four years than most people have heard in their lifetime. This is also a primary reason that George Colligan's Ask Me Tomorrow is a wondrous look into the cerebral vision of an artistic journey that has come full circle. There is a syncopated synergy of harmonic movement that some of Colligan's contemporaries have ignored, perhaps forgetting the piano originated as a percussive instrument. George Colligan pulls an ambient almost ethereal like quality while pushing what is normally considered the "straight ahead" sound into the next dimension.
To focus on the minutia of Ask Me Tomorrow in terms of critical analysis would be doing an injustice to this amazing collective that is rounded off with the fabulous Linda Oh on bass and the lyrical finesse of drummer Ted Poor. While Colligan would seem to favor minor keys, odd meters and an organic pulse, the overwhelming beauty of his melodies only seem stronger for his approach. Open, warm, deceptively subtle in nuanced texture is the embodiment of what can best be referred to as capturing lighting in a bottle as this is a live studio recording, three hours in the studio and no rehearsal. The results include the percussive insistence and odd metered groove of "Insistent Linda." We are also graciously served up an intimate "Jesper's Summer House." The richness of flavor is fortified with the dynamic tension of the free formed "Two Notes, Four Chords." The hauntingly beautiful "Denmark" may well be the jewel in this amazing collection. These are all original compositions, no standards...Ask Me Tomorrow is predictable by embracing an open ended unpredictable nature.
I have been hard on George Colligan and not because I know more about music or because I have some pseudo-intellectual axe to grind but because I knew this was an artist that could go deep. We all can pull from a deeper place; artists, listeners and especially critics. This is the George Colligan I have been waiting for. While the year is still relatively young, Ask Me Tomorrow may be one of the very best recordings I have heard in my four hundred plus reviews thus far and easily one of the most memorable piano trios that I have heard in the last decade.
By Brent Black / www.criticaljazz.com
The artistic evolution of George Colligan, Ask Me Tomorrow is a stunning triumph!
Next to a solo piano release, the piano trio may be the most unforgiving ensemble presentations in improvisational music. The harmonic equivalent of tap dancing in a melodic minefield. This is an easy statement to make when you are an admittedly cynical critic that has reviewed more piano trios in four years than most people have heard in their lifetime. This is also a primary reason that George Colligan's Ask Me Tomorrow is a wondrous look into the cerebral vision of an artistic journey that has come full circle. There is a syncopated synergy of harmonic movement that some of Colligan's contemporaries have ignored, perhaps forgetting the piano originated as a percussive instrument. George Colligan pulls an ambient almost ethereal like quality while pushing what is normally considered the "straight ahead" sound into the next dimension.
To focus on the minutia of Ask Me Tomorrow in terms of critical analysis would be doing an injustice to this amazing collective that is rounded off with the fabulous Linda Oh on bass and the lyrical finesse of drummer Ted Poor. While Colligan would seem to favor minor keys, odd meters and an organic pulse, the overwhelming beauty of his melodies only seem stronger for his approach. Open, warm, deceptively subtle in nuanced texture is the embodiment of what can best be referred to as capturing lighting in a bottle as this is a live studio recording, three hours in the studio and no rehearsal. The results include the percussive insistence and odd metered groove of "Insistent Linda." We are also graciously served up an intimate "Jesper's Summer House." The richness of flavor is fortified with the dynamic tension of the free formed "Two Notes, Four Chords." The hauntingly beautiful "Denmark" may well be the jewel in this amazing collection. These are all original compositions, no standards...Ask Me Tomorrow is predictable by embracing an open ended unpredictable nature.
I have been hard on George Colligan and not because I know more about music or because I have some pseudo-intellectual axe to grind but because I knew this was an artist that could go deep. We all can pull from a deeper place; artists, listeners and especially critics. This is the George Colligan I have been waiting for. While the year is still relatively young, Ask Me Tomorrow may be one of the very best recordings I have heard in my four hundred plus reviews thus far and easily one of the most memorable piano trios that I have heard in the last decade.
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