This disc documents a quick 'n' dirty piano trio session recorded by
Aaron Goldberg and two longtime friends and collaborators -- bassist
Omer Avital and drummer
Ali Jackson Jr. -- in late December 2009. These three young players have known one another for years, watched each other come up on the New York scene, and played together from time to time. They share a musical philosophy, blending melody with blues and swing in an old-school but not self-consciously retro fashion, and work extremely well together. The repertoire on the disc is a mix of interpretations of tunes -- by
Abdullah Ibrahim,
Duke Ellington,
Mercer Ellington, and
Thelonious Monk, among others -- and originals by
Avital and
Jackson.
Goldberg's playing is a little too smooth and deft for the
Monk tune; he loses the elbows-on-the-keys feel that's required to give the melody any real kick, and it winds up feeling somewhat restaurant-piano-player-ish. But on the
Ellington tunes and the originals, he's really in his element; his sound falls somewhere between
Ahmad Jamal and
Red Garland or
Wynton Kelly, a player capable of swinging and getting into the blues without ever becoming florid or overwrought.
Avital and
Jackson are a more than capable rhythm team, driving the music at least as much and as often as the pianist. There's nothing even remotely revelatory here, but the players' unwillingness to color outside the lines actually feels like a virtue for most of the disc's running time. ~ Phil Freeman
