The Elegant Piano of a Storyteller. Ted Rosenthal Trio- "High Standards"

 

Ted Rosenthal Trio: High Standards-TMR Music

New York based Ted Rosenthal is a lyrical pianist whose work is often admired for his facile skill, invention, and conversationalist qualities. The man has the rare  ability to elegantly transform the jazz canon into a storytelling experience, and I compare his style to the great Tommy Flanagan, whose playing comes to mind as an influence. 

Rosenthal studied classical piano and received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Manhattan School of Music in performance. Rosenthal’s love of jazz never left his soul. He studied with pianists Jaki Byard and Lennie Tristano, besides playing with such luminaries as Gerry Mulligan, Phil Woods and Bill Brookmeyer amongst others.

I first got to hear Rosenthal with his working trio of Noriko Ueda on bass and Tim Horner on drums, in a small, unmemorable hideaway in Mamaroneck, NY sometime back in the nineteen-nineties. Or was it the early two-thousands? No matter, at the time I was impressed by just how effervescent, joyful and elegant this pianist's performance was. Time together had honed the trio to develop an uncanny sixth sense for where Rosenthal’s fertile mind might lead and the results were top notch.

Besides his trio, solo and session work, Rosenthal has spent many of his subsequent years educating the next pianistic generation as a faculty member at his alma mater, The Manhattan School of Music, at Julliard, and at The New School jazz programs.

His latest album, High Standards, released in March of this year, is a thoroughly enjoyable, just under sixty-five-minute, nine-selection recording of some memorable standards by such composers as Bernstein/Sondheim, Carmichael/Mercer, and Van Heusen/Burke to name a few.

Rosenthal opens with Leonard Bernstein's “Jet Song,” from the show West Side Story. Rosenthal is joined by the bassist Martin Wind and his long-time drummer Tim Horner. The trio offers a playful jaunt through this energized music that was linked to a splendid dance number in the musical. Rosenthal dances on his keyboard, Wind punctuates the bravado sentiment and provides some arco poignancy, and Horner cadences the steps on his trap set to the point that you can see the gang members dance in your mind's eye.

Carmichael’s “Skylark” has been a favorite of improvisers for over eighty years. Rosenthal’s piano intro is a miniature masterful melodic statement that radiates with splendor before the trio joins with an expansive, soft swing. Wind offers a plucky bass solo as Horner deftly adds complimentary brush work. Rosenthal’s piano, never predictable, finds multiple ways to explore the melody by using dynamics and rhythmic changes.

“Old Devil Moon” is a Burton Lane composition that finds Rosenthal with his long-time bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Quincy Davis. The three use a staccato rhythmic approach here that features some impressive bass pizzicato work in synch with some syncopated trap work, along with piano accents. Rosenthal can swing with the best of them, or he can provide stunning ascending and descending lines that flow from his keyboard like warm butter on hot pancakes. The music is energized and joyful. There are some creative exchanges between Ueda’s bass and Rosenthal’s piano, a treat that reveals just how well these two bandmates know each other.

The music continues with “Everything That Happens to Me,” originally played by Tommy Dorsey’s Orchestra and sung by Frank Sinatra. The song also found versions popularized by voices like Billie Holiday and Chet Baker. Rosenthal expresses the thematic emotions of despair, loneliness, and the resolve of being on the wrong side of fate, with his own sensitive pianistic interpretation of this Matt Dennis composition.  A warm pizzicato solo by Wind is another feature.

Johnny Van Heusen’s “It Could Happen to You” offers hope, surprise, and romantic optimism in contrast to the previous composition.  Rosenthal cleverly changes the mood and treats this one with a more upbeat swing. Whatever the mood of the composition evokes, Rosenthal has the tools to explore these emotions. If the pianist feels joy in the music, he transmits that joy through to the listener using embellishment, tone and rhythmic variation. As a listener, the essence of the music is told to you aurally, but it is almost like the story is being conveyed visually. Erroll Garner was a master at this and so is Rosenthal.

The remainder of the album includes “To Life.” Marvin Hamlisch’s “One,” “Lover Man” made famous by Billie Holiday and Tom McIntosh’s “The Cup Bearer.”

The two trios were recorded on separate dates in July and August of 2024 and each offer their own special moments as they interact with the pianist. Ted Rosenthal’s playing has gotten even better over the years. His splendid command of the material and the bottomless depth of the man’s creative well from which he draws makes High Standards a delightful album that offers the listener hours of enjoyment.

Andy Milne and Unison: Poignancy, Jubilation and Conviction on "Time Will Tell"

Andy Milne and Unison: Time Will Tell: Sunnyside Records

Andy Milne is a Canadian pianist born in Hamilton, Ontario who studied at Banff Centre for Fine Arts and with pianist icon Oscar Peterson. He was a member of the enigmatic saxophonist Steve Coleman's group Five Elements and a member of the M-Base Collective. Milne won Canada's prestigious Juno Award for Jazz Group Album of the Year in 2018 for his Seasons of the Being with his Dapp Theory group. He was the pianist in Coleman's bands from 1992 through 2001 and held the piano chair in groups led by trumpeter Ralph Alessi, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, vocalist Cassandra Wilson, and others. He is presently an assistant professor of music at University of Michigan and an Assistant Director of The School of Improvisational Music.

I was fortunate to catch his performance as part of the progressive trumpeter Ralph Alessi's group at a show at Portland's 1905 back in June of 2023. Milne's approach to the keyboard is sensitive, probing, fluid, and inventive. His piano work is individualistic; an amalgam of melodic classical influences that are somehow framed in fearless jazz improvisational explorations all his own. His previous album The reMission, released in 2020, was inspired by his personal experience dealing with the discovery, treatment, and recovery of having had cancer. It was an aural reaction to a life-changing challenge that fortunately had an uplifting result. The album won Milne and his group Unison the 2021 Juno Award for Jazz Albums of the Year by Groups. 

      Andy Milne at the piano at Portland's 1905 June 2023

The pianist's latest Sunnyside album Time Will Tell with Andy Milne and Unison was released on April 26th of this year. He is joined by longtime trio members John Hébert on upright bass and Clarence Pennn on drums. The three have a synchronous connection that fits well with Milne's concept of how a trio should be keen on the elements of texture and groove in their approach to music. Milne, who was adopted, uses the inspiration of his lifelong search for his birth family and their history as the fuel that creates the impetus for most of this music.

Of the ten compositions in this record, eight are written by Milne. One, written by Hébert, "Broken Landscape," is a beautiful vehicle for the trio to share some expressive playing and telepathic interplay. Milne's piano is melodic, searching, and cascading. Hébert's bass tone is warm and resonating and Penn's brushwork impeccably supportive.

"Papounet' is a composition contributed by Penn, the title being a word used by the drummer's grandchildren as a favored name for him. The composition brings its own sense of family and connections to the album's theme. The trio's dynamic synchronicity is on full display on this one, with a highlight dynamic, whirling drum work by Penn.

Time Will Tell includes two guest performers who add their own textural and tonal aspects to this musical palette. The tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, who attended the Jazz Composers Insitute at UCLA at the same time as Milne back in 2012, lends her energy and facility to four of the songs.

"Purity of Heart", the opener and a Milne composition, is a case in point. Laubrock's added wattage, in synch with the trio's inherent, ostinato-driven propulsion is a splendid synthesis. The music has its own heartbeat, an organic drive that flows like a surging life force. Milne's piano illuminates the beauty of this music with his mastery of expression.

Milne's fascination with the sounds, textures, and color of various instruments, as well as his former work on an animated project Strings and Serpents, that included piano and koto duos, made the pianist want to add the second guest artist Yoko Reikano Kimura and her koto to this music. The koto is an expressive string instrument that can produce deeply emotive sounds that can range from soulful anguish to frantic ferocity. Milne skillfully uses the aurally complimentary musical possiblities of the koto and his piano in his compositions.



Unison Trio: Clarence Penn, Andy Milne, and John Hébert (photo credit Kasa Idzkowska)


"Lost and Found", a Milne beautiful composition that possibly captures his own experience with meeting his birth mother, opens with Kimura's koto setting the scene with a sense of soulful mystery and trepidation. Piano and koto do a delicate dance, a minuet-like note-for-note reception. Two entities, cautiously meeting after a long period of estrangement with caution, curiosity, and hopefulness.

"Beyond the Porcelain Door" is a jagged procession of sorts. It shifts in tempo and tone. Like a life that is faced with an unmapped route. Unknown territory and unexpected detours. Laubrock's tenor is out front as the trio navigates the chosen trail which seems a bit tentative. Kimura's koto, Milne's piano, Hébert's bass, and Penn's sticks spell out the steps forward in conjunction.

"Solotude" is a short one-minute and forty-second piano solo exploration. An acknowledgment that sometimes we are on our own.

The eastern-inspired "Kumoi Joshi" opens with Kimura's ostinato koto picking, Hébert's vibrant bass, and Penn's shimmering cymbal work. Laugbrock's soulful tenor opens with the melodic line as Milne's piano maintains the repeating line and the trio creates a swirling hum of energy. Milne offers an inspired chicanery of piano notes that erupt over his trio's powerful cauldron of activity until the music switches pace. Kimura's exotic-sounding koto creates a gauze of mystery and suspense over Penn and Hébert's rhythmic drone.

The album continues with Milne's "No Matter What" an ascending and descending line that opens like an abstract statement of direction with unexpected shifts and jagged fluctuations. The trio shows an uncanny athleticism, following each other precisely, empathetically, like three musical siblings joined at the hip.

Milne reprises "Lost and Found," this time opening as a sensitive solo piano piece for the first almost two-minute mark. The fetching melody starts out lyrical and introspective before Milne changes the tone and pace of the music. The rhythm section maintains the syncopated rhythmic feel before Laubrock's tenor enters with a plaintive and romantic sound. In it, I hear some fleeting similarities in the melody line on Sting's "Fragile." Listening to Milne's thoughtful solo, there is no similarity in the slightest, just bubbling inventiveness. He, Hébert, and Penn lock into the ether, they make the art of the trio truly a collaborative thing of beauty.

The album's closing composition, "Apart," I suspect is a reference to being sometimes separated from our families by life's often perplexing curveballs. Hébert's opening bass intro is sensitively offered before Milne's emotive piano lines ring out with beauty and hope. Andy Milne can be a joyous player. He and his trio play with an inherent sense of poignancy, jubilation, and conviction that rings through the music that they play. 

Tyshawn Sorey's Trio: "Continuing" w/ Aaron Diehl and Matt Brewer

Tyshawn Sorey Trio : Continuing- Pi Recordings

The drummer/composer/arranger Tyshawn Sorey never ceases to impress. This time his trio of Aaron Diehl on piano and Matt Brewer on bass released Continuing on Pi Recordings at the end of June and it takes a deliberate, thoughtful, sometimes slow simmer approach to make its artistic point. Sorey has one of the most creative musical minds out there today. He seems to reinforce this notion with each of his successive releases like this one on the heels of his 2022  highly acclaimed Mesmerism and The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism. 

On Continuing, Sorey and his bandmates take three songs culled from the canon of some recently passed masters' artwork. Wayne Shorter's "Reincarnation Blues" was first heard on Art Blakey's 1962 Buhaina's Delight,  pianist Ahmad Jamal's "Selertus"first heard life on Jamal's 1958 release Portfolio of Ahmad Jamal, and  "In What Direction Are You Headed" from Sorey's mentor Harold Mabern, to whom this album is dedicated. The one outlier is the Earl K. Brent/Matt Dennis classic "Angel Eyes," which was from the 1953 film Jennifer where Dennis, the songwriter, played piano and performed it for the first time. The song later became part of the canon when it was picked up by jazz artists like Dave Brubeck, Jim Hall, Gene Ammons, and Chris Conner to name a few. 

What is beautiful about this album is the care and extended time that these terrifically sympathetic musicians take to develop their expressive musical interpretations of these gems.

Starting with Shorter's "Reincarnation Blues," the trio takes this hard bop tune and gives it a slow blues saunter of a rhythm with a metronomic feel. The music is brilliantly walked by Brewer and cadenced to perfection by Sorey. Diehl's slowly developed harmonic ideas are explorative and spare, but yet never lack in grabbing your attention. At about the 3:58 mark, Brewer offers a probing bass solo that is responded to by Sorey's selective percussive responses. The group punctuates the music with a sense of increased intensity at the 7:07 min mark. They raise the heat dynamically as Diehl's piano erupts with a gush of notes, Sorey's drum work percolates with intention, and Brewer's bass pulses like a throbbing organ.  There is an alloy-like quality to the way these three musicians interact, almost like being fused on the neurological level.

With Jamal's "Seletrtus," we find Sorey and Brewer creating a march-like cadence that sets the tone. Diehl chordally sets a line that has Brewer responding with an alternative take on his buoyant bass. The trio keeps the repeated line like a backdrop to some exploratory bass work by Brewer and syncopated lines by Sorey. Diehl ascends the line with climbing chord work that urges Sorey and Brewer to increase the pace. Sorey's drum work is incredible, a multi-tonal,  kinetic feast of rhythmic invention. Diehl's work is resplendent carrying the music over the magically enticing rhythmic feast. 

Sorey's "Angel Eyes" is a veritable reinvention of this classic. It simply captivates you. The pace is slow, real slow, and languishing, like an instrumental being given a provocative Shirley Horn treatment, and no less effective than her unique way of making a song all her own. Brewer is given high marks for being able to keep this lazy pace without ever losing the time. Diehl spells out the melody with precise notes that just hang like gorgeously ripe grapes on a fall-season vineyard arbor. Sorey judiciously uses his cymbals to great effect, tickling rhythm from subtle, swirling sounds. These guys bring new possibilities as to how you might listen to this song. Wordless music that speaks volumes. It's like a love affair with this melody. They carry it for almost fourteen intentional minutes and they make you believe that you maybe never really heard this song the way it was supposed to be played before.

Harold Mabern's "In What Direction Are You Headed" is a gospel-inspired, soul-drenched finger-snapping song. Brewer lays a circular line that holds down the vamp. Diehl lays out a wandering pianistic exploration. Sorey's rotating drum work is overflowing with vibrancy and drive. The music has an organic life of all its own offering tinkling piano keys that just float, staccato rolling bass lines that circle like a clock mechanism, and built on a relentless flurry of percussion that just drives this anthem throughout.

The Tyshawn Sorey Trio's Continuing is certainly worth several listens to appreciate just how rewarding reimagined music can be in the right hands.