Piano Trios, Part 2

Jaki Byard, Sunshine of My Soul (Prestige Original Jazz Classics). Byard, piano; David Izenson, bass; Elvin Jones, drums.
I wrote in a blurb for the 2001 reissue of this album, “Byard was one of the most disciplined and one of the least inhibited of all jazz improvisers.” With Ornette Coleman’s bassist and John Coltrane’s drummer, he spreads sunshine even as they hurtle headlong through space without guideposts in “Trendsition Zildjian,” eleven minutes of total improvisation. The track is amazing even in the context of this amazing recording. Made in 1967, its music will always be new. No one has solved the mystery of Byard’s murder in 1998 and no one has explained the mystery of his genius. Genuis is like that.
Mike Wofford, Live at Athenaeum Jazz (Capri). Wofford, piano; Peter Washington, bass; Victor Lewis, drums.
Reviewing Wofford’s first album, Strawberry Wine, in 1967, I described him as “an excellent piano player who is much under the spell of Bill Evans.There are some tracks on which Wofford’s individuality shows. His approach includes humor, a quality many musicians his age have avoided like the plague.” Thirty-eight years later, Wofford is still in the Evans tradition in terms of his touch, chord voicings, implied rhythms, and ability to generate a floating quality. But his individuality shows here on every track, as it has for decades. His mastery and, yes, humor, are priceless on Ellington’s “Take the Coltrane.” Wofford is based in San Diego. This was recorded just up the road in La Jolla. His sidemen are two of New York’s finest. They deserve to be in his company.
Dave Peck, Good Road (Let’s Play Stella). Peck, piano; Jeff Johnson, bass; Joe LaBarbera, drums.
Hiring Bill Evans’ last drummer and one of the leading exponents of the Scott LaFaro school of bass playing for this date, Peck clearly had no intention of disguising Evans’s influence. From the pianist’s ethereal introduction of “Yesterdays” through his composition “The First Sign of Spring,” which hints at Evans tunes, to the slowly decaying final chord of “She Was Too Good to Me,” Evans hovers benevolently over Peck’s stimulating session. The trio is beautifully integrated, sounding as if they had been working together night after night. “Just in Time,” “What is This Thing Called Love” and “On Green Dolphin Street” are swingers. Peck is reflective in two of Ellington’s loveliest ballads, “Low Key Lightly” and “The Star Crossed Lovers.” Good Road seems to me his best work on records.
Bobo Stenson, Goodbye (ECM). Stenson, piano; Anders Jormin, bass; Paul Motian, drums.
Tord Gustavsen, The Ground (ECM). Gustavsen, piano; Harald Johnsen, bass; Jarle Vespestad, drums.
In the lavish clarity of ECM’s sound, these CDs present impressive Scandinavian pianists. With Paul Motian as his drummer, Stenson, a Swede, would seem to be courting an Evans sensibility. Motian is too perpetually hip to encourage a return to those glorious days of yesteryear, although the trio comes closest to Evans in “Yesterdays.” Stenson has certain similarities to Evans in touch and harmonic voicings, but generally his work is more informed by Scriabin-like gravity—until the last piece. In Ornette Coleman’s “Race Face,” everyone scurries amiably and the pianist treats us to outré intervals. Great fun.
Fun does not come to mind in describing the work of Gustavsen. Beauty does. In the words of Guardian reviewer John Fordahm, the Norwegian “likes space, silence and ambiguity.” His music’s dreamy qualities have crossed him over into the feel-good, soft-jazz market, but his trio’s playing has enough harmonic density, backbone and guts that he’s never going to be mistaken for George Winston.
Quickly, then (I can’t stay up all night again), here are other piano trio CDs that I’ve allowed to move to the top of the stack:
Peter Beets, New York Trio, Page 3 (Criss Cross). Beets, piano; Reginald Veal, bass; Herlin Riley, drums.
Fine young mainstream Dutch pianist. Third CD on Criss Cross. Getting better all the time.
Jo Ann Daugherty, Range of Motion (BluJazz). Daughterty, piano; Lorin Cohen or Larry Kohut, bass; guitar, saxophones, trumpet, trombone.
Ms. Daugherty is from Missouri and lives in Chicago. There is only one trio track on her CD. The horns and guitar are all good, and so are her tunes, but that trio track, “Harold’s Tune,” is a gem. I had never heard of her when I put the disc on. I love surprises like this. Jo Ann Daugherty deserves—no, we deserve—a trio album, pronto.
Alexander Schimmeroth, Arrival (Fresh Sound). Schimmeroth, piano; Matt Penman, bass; Jeff Ballard, drums.
Schimmeroth is a young German living in New York. His sound is full-bodied, his timing and note placement exquisite. This is an impressive debut.
David Hazeltine, Modern Standards (Sharp Nine). Hazeltine, piano; David Williams, bass, Joe Farnsworth, drums.
One of the great pros among jazz pianists under fifty, always swinging, always satisfying.
Hod O’Brien, Live at Blues Alley, First Set, Second Set (Reservoir). O’Brien, piano; Ray Drummond, bass; Kenny Washington, drums.
O’Brien was active in New York in the fifties and remains an inspired exponent of the bebop style founded by Bud Powell. Drummond and Washington inspire him to some of his best playing.