Search - Denny Zeitlin :: Denny Zeitlin Trio in Concert Featuring Buster Williams and Matt Wilson

Jazz has always had renaissance men: Duke Ellington and Miles Davis were visual artists of universal renown. Milt Hinton was a spectacular photographer. And Billy Taylor is an accomplished author. Pianist/composer/educator/psychiatrist Denny Zeitlin the composer of the jazz standard Quiet Now, and an artist with more than sixteen recordings as a leader who has worked and recorded with everybody, from Charlie Haden and Herbie Hancock to Pat Metheny makes his Sunnyside debut with his release, In Concert, featuring bassist Buster Williams and drummer Matt Wilson.

The CD s nine tracks were recorded at L.A. s Jazz Bakery, and The Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque, N.M., from 2001 to 2006. For the seventy year-old Zeitlin, this delightful aural document his first since his 2004 Maxx Jazz release Slickrock, also with Williams, and Wilson captures the full range of his profound, penetrating, and propulsive pianism in simpatico with William s anchor-sure basslines and Wilson s articulate and angular drumming. Their soulful and syncopated synchronicity reinvigorates the CD s four standards. John Coltrane s Mr. P.C. is delivered at a breakneck pace on a 24-bar minor blues form, with Zeitlin s fleet-fingered unaccompanied solo crossing blues and free boundaries. I was galvanized by Coltrane s music as I was developing my approach in high school and college, Zeitlin writes on the CD liner notes, and Giant Steps was a favorite LP.

The Jerome Brainer/Buddy Bernier chestnut, The Night Has 1000 Eyes/10,000 Eyes, highlights Zeitlin s limitless ability to recompose a tune; in this case, by adding catchy vamps. I ve reworked this piece so extensively, adding several new sections, that I announce it as The Night Has 10,000 Eyes when we perform, Zeitlin writes. Cole Porter s All of You is also rendered with a new melodic lease on life This is one of my all-time favorite standards, and I have extensively re-harmonized it, hopefully retaining the core of the song, Zeitlin writes. We have played this arrangement for years, and the structure seems endlessly intriguing... I love the relaxed groove the trio gets, and Buster and Matt s solidity and flexibility allow me to bend and stretch the time, and drape improvisatory lines over the bars into new territory.

The rest unveils that new territory explored by Zeitlin and company with five original compositions. The leader s The We in Us is a wistful Bill Evans-like opus written for his wife in celebration of their anniversary, contrasted by Zeitlin s Ornette Coleman-ish, funk-finessed Prime Times, that orbits around 5/4 and 7/4 time. Buster Williams moving and Mingusonian solo, Bass Prelude sets the sonic stage for Zeitlin and company s treatment of David Friesen s Signs & Wonders. This is my favorite David Friesen composition, a minor bluesy 16-bar shuffle that begins mysteriously and impressionistically, and develops tremendous drive and groove, Zeitlin writes. We frequently end concerts with this piece, and it closes out this album.