Renee Rosnes "Ancestors"
Blue Note, 8 34634 2 (61 mins) Dial-a-track code 1421 Nils Lindberg
"Lindberg Mitchell Paulsson"
LCM, C-128 (57 mins)
Dial-a-track code 1531 Shirley Horn "The Main Ingredient" Verve, 529 555-2 (54 mins) Dial-a-track code 1641
Renee Rosnes made a considerable impact in Cork five years ago, leading a brilliant neo bop quintet. On the evidence of Ancestors, she must now be one of the finest jazz pianists in that much expanded idiom, a superbly focused player capable of going anywhere her musical inspiration takes her. Made last October, this new, release places her backed beautifully by Peter Washington (bass) and Al Foster (drums) in small group formats with Chris Potter (reeds) and Nicholas Payton (trumpet), as remarkable for their sense of adventure as their sheer musicality. Inevitable comparisons with Herbie Hancock as a possible influence on both Rosnes and the group approach show how mechanical Hancock now seems (his latest on Verve, The New Standard, is about as engrossing as listening to a well tuned engine with the accelerator occasionally pushed down). In contrast, Rosnes and the group engage in sparkling discourse, centred and imaginative, with the ballads, in particular, full of lyric beauty. Her understanding with Potter is especially compelling on what is the best released under her name.
Nils Lindberg is one of the treasures of Swedish jazz, a gifted pianist, composer and arranger who, though acknowledged as such even by Americans since the Sixties, is little known outside Scandinavia. Placing himself, Red Mitchell (bass) and Angers Paulsson (soprano) with a string quartet for a programme of his own, often folk flavoured compositions, Lindberg has produced a marriage that works completely. The writing for strings sounds natural, unforced and totally persuasive, among the finest I've heard from a jazz musician, while the solo work of piano, bass and soprano is simply lovely. There are no meretricious flourishes here just music so good that it's a joy from start to finish.
Like Rosnes, Shirley Horn mixes'n'matches, successfully permutating Joe Henderson and Buck Hill (tenors), Roy Hargrove (flugelhorn) and rhythm sections for another exposition of her nonpareil singing and piano skills. Henderson and Hargrove are particularly delicate, the programme is for the most part well chosen and her ability to handle time with expressive tension remarkable.
Walter Norris "Hues Of Blues"
Concord, CCD-4671 (59 mins)
Dial-a-track code 1751
Braff-Kellaway "Inside & Out"
Concord, CCD-4691 (60 mins)
Dial-a-track code 1861
Two remarkable duo issues from Concord, with pianist Norris in breath taking exchanges with bassist George Mraz, and cornetist Ruby Braff really pushed harmonically and inspired melodically by pianist Roger Kellaway. Both releases date from last year and though the music chosen is largely standards, it's wonderfully fresh and inventive. Hard to say which is the more essential perhaps because Norris is in such scintillating form and Mraz matches him, it leaves the more immediate impression. But then Braff is unique and Kellaway too good to be missed...
Stan Getz "Live In Paris"
Dreyfus, FDM 36577-2 (57 mins)
Dial-a-track code 1971
"Stan Meets Chet" (50 mins) Verve, 837 436-2
Dial-a-track code 2081
A new album from the late Stan Getz? Turns out to be a live, never before released 1982 date from Paris, with Jim McNeely (piano), Marc Johnson (bass) and Victor Lewis (drums) the quartet, if memory serves, he brought to Dublin that year. It's full of splendid jazz Getz is sublime, his sound beautifully captured, and the rhythm section fits like a glove. The one caveat is the piano, which could have been better tuned. Likewise for Getz's 1958 encounter with trumpeter Chet Baker the piano is not as well behaved as it should be. Neither, apparently, was Baker, who is below par on this, one of the rarest of all Getz sessions. But the great tenor brushes these problems aside and the local (Chicago) rhythm section responds effectively to his lead. Essential for Getz fans, but not for anyone else.
