This isn't the kind of trio album where standards are deconstructed and the wheel is reinvented. It's the very opposite and revels in the classic, sleek, lines of the format, standards and Broadway songs as its vocabulary and treasure chest. Elegance and sophistication are written into its DNA. Charlap has immaculate touch and he and Peter and Kenny Washington in their long-running collaborative journey finish each other's sentences. Textbook piano trio in other words in the classic mould, this album could have been made in the 1950s or 1960s and is a period piece in that sense.
Included on the album are Charlap's elegantly swinging version of Brubeck's paean to Duke Ellington 'The Duke' and a treatment of the Victor Young and Samuel M. Lewis song 'Street Of Dreams'. The inclusion of 'I'll Know,' a Frank Loesser standard from Guys and Dolls that you don't often hear so obviously these days, is a good choice. The track I liked most was 'Your Host' the perky Kenny Burrell composition that appeared on the 1956 album Jazzmen:Detroit. Kenny Washington's busy scuffling momentum gives the treatment a lot of life. You'll be snapping your fingers before too long. SG
Tags: