Latest releases reviewed
KENNY WHEELER What Now? CamJazz *****
Made to celebrate Wheeler's 75th birthday, this glorious CD joins the great flugelhorn player with colleagues of choice, Chris Potter (tenor), John Taylor (piano) and Dave Holland (bass), in a programme of his own distinctive compositions. Wheeler, as ever, is lyricism personified, combining the dramatic with the poetic in his trademark way, while Potter, utterly at home in Wheeler's music, is simply sublime; the empathy they share is almost palpable. Taylor, naturally, is a sympathetic foil and brilliant soloist, while through it all runs the magisterial thread of Holland's marvellous bass. Sheer beauty from start to finish, The Lover Mourns, What Now?, For Tracy and the gorgeous Verona are a summation of this quartet at its finest. www.CamJazz.com Ray Comiskey
TORD GUSTAVSEN TRIO The Ground ECM *****
While superficially resembling the hushed, secular beauty of the trio's acclaimed début, Changing Places, Gustavsen's new CD has a definite spiritual flavour, as titles such as Curtains Aside, Colours of Mercy, Kneeling Down, Reach Out And Touch It and Edges Of Happiness suggest. And since the leader's compositions epitomise his reflective Scandinavian nature, this devotional feel is imbued with more than the country gospel cadences that occasionally colour them. The determining factor is Gustavsen's capacity for melody and for weaving graceful, even profound solos seamlessly from the fabric of each piece. But there is also Harald Johnsen's expressive bass and Jarle Vespestad's subtly imaginative drums to engage intimately with the leader's piano in an interplay that has grown even more secure and, in its understated way, more assertive. www.musicconnection.org.uk Ray Comiskey
ENRICO PIERANUNZI Special Encounter CamJazz *****
Combining Pieranunzi's piano with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Paul Motian deserves to be called a special encounter, and the music lives up to the billing. Two standards, My Old Flame and a beautiful You've Changed, show what they, and especially Pieranunzi, can do with the familiar; the third, a lovely Why Did I Choose You?, is less known. But the originals, five by the leader and three by Haden, are performances that delve even deeper into the after-hours atmosphere that suffuses even the medium-up Secret Nights, a probing, restless but compelling example of their collective artistry, and Haden's buoyant Waltz For Ruth. Motian is discretion itself, leaving piano and bass to their joint communion; one track is an exquisite piano-bass duet on Pieranunzi's poignant, melancholy Miradas. ww.CamJazz.com Ray Comiskey
