Steve Kuhn, Steve Swallow & Joey Baron
Release Date: 30 April 2012
Label: ECM Records
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 602527945781
Genres: Jazz Contemporary
Description
Wisdom and wistfulness are intertwined in Wisteria, whose title track, written by Art Farmer, takes listeners back to the early 1960s, when both pianist Steve Kuhn and bassist Steve Swallow sang softly of the blues in the trumpeter-flugelhornist's band. The pair know each other's playing well: in accord at a very high level, they develop their improvisational ideas together and share the same love of melody.
This new album takes a fresh look at several pieces heard in Kuhn's orchestral Promises Kept collection - his robust and adaptable compositions have often lent themselves to quite different interpretations - but alongside the aching balladry there is also some driving hard bop (on 'A Likely Story'), a brace of Swallow tunes ('Dark Glasses'), Carla Bley's gospel-tinged 'Permanent Wave' and the Brazilian 'Romance' by Dori Caymmi... In all, it's a varied programme that the trio seems to sail through effortlessly, master musicians beyond the need to prove anything, creating the agreeable illusion that this demanding music is playing itself.
Early on Steve Kuhn moved in exceptional company, playing with Chet Baker and Coleman Hawkins, and then in a band with Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. Briefly and famously, he was the first pianist of the John Coltrane Quartet and later worked with Stan Getz in a line-up with Scott LaFaro. At the end of the 1960s, Kuhn spent four years living in Europe, mostly in Scandinavia, but it was not until his return to the United States that he began his affiliation with ECM, resulting in a string of important albums. Three were reprised in the 2008 box set Life's Backward Glances: the solo album Ecstasy, and the quartet discs Motility and Playground (the latter with singer Sheila Jordan).
Personnel: Steve Kuhn (piano), Steve Swallow (bass), Joey Baron (drums)
Tracklisting
Hakon Aase; Leo Svensson Sander; Ayumi Tanaka; Ole Morten Vagan; Thomas Stronen
Zakir Hussain; Hariprasad Chaurasia; John McLaughlin; Jan Garbarek
Keith Jarrett
Wu Wei; Martin Stegner; Janne Saksala
John Scofield; Dave Holland
Anouar Brahem; Jan Garbarek; Shaukat Hussain
Zehetmair Quartett
Meredith Monk; Ellen Fisher; Katie Geissinger; Joanna Lynn-Jacobs; Allison Sniffin; John Hollenbeck
Stephane Kerecki; Marc Copland; Tore Brunborg; Fabrice Moreau; Ralph Alessi
Quatuor Hanson; Philippe Hattat; Theo Fouchenneret; Emmanuel Jacquet; Rodolphe Thery
Ensemble Fractales; Elis Hallik
Ensemble InterContemporain
Carla Rees, RSNO Wind Ensemble
Silvia Tarozzi; Deborah Walker; Julia Eckrardt
Orchestre Victor Hugo; Orchestre National de Bretagne
Alexej Gerassimez, SIGNUM saxophone quartet
