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
Vladimir Spivakov; Sergej Bezrodny; Alexander Malter; Dietmar Schwalke
Steve Swallow; Michael Rodriguez;Chris Cheek; Steve Cardenas; Gil Goldstein; Adam Nussbaum
Ensemble Modern Orchestra; Rob Rutman; Peter Eotvos
Joe Lovano; Julian Lage; Asante Santi Debriano; Will Calhoun
Tomasz Stanko; Tomasz Szukalski; Dave Holland; Edward Vesala
Bill Connors; Jan Garbarek; Gary Peacock; Jack DeJohnette
Mick Goodrick; Fred Hersch
Judith Berkson; Trevor Dunn; Gerald Cleaver
Alternative Guitar Summit
Mathias Heise & Pelle von Bulow
Nicholas Payton + Butcher Brown
Callum Au
Deirdre Cartwright's ORGANIK
Alessio Menconi & Nigel Price
Trish Clowes
Zoe Rahman
