The Esbjörn Svensson Trio is a Bonafide FIND!

...Whenever I hear of a newer jazz artist covering the tunage of one of the greats from one of my favorite musical eras 1953-ish to the late 60's (the hard bop period through the avant-garde movement; on into the early fusion stuff), I get a little twitch in the corner of my eye because more often than not, the newer take comes off like a copy of a duplicated facsimilie...in mimeograph...or the later effort, as ambitious as it may be, is being attempted by musicians who don't have the chops for the task they've set themselves...(I get a similar feeling when that jazz pianist in the house band on Michael Feldman's NPR quiz show, "Whaddaya Know"-- dude always attempts piano runs that he can never resolve...I turn the radio down every time I hear one coming...the quiz show itself is funny sometimes, though but I'm digressing...

....such is not this case when the Esbjörn Svensson (piano), Dan Berglund (double bass) and Magnus Östrom (drums) got together as the Esbjörn Svensson Trio and recorded 1997's "Plays Monk" for EST Records (later to be re-issued on ACT in 2001)...if you read me, then you already know that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Thelonious Monk fan so, when my homebiscuit, Erin turned me on to it I was skeptical...I'd heard about Svensson but never got around to him which I began to regret as the outfit hit the ground running at a crisp, brisk clip with a rendition of "Rhythim-a-Ning" that quickly brought a smile to my face about 20 seconds and the string stuff on " 'Round Midnight" brought a fresher feel to a classic I already knew inside out...and I'm not telling porkie-pies around the campfire, either...



















...going deeper into the album's trackage, one finds that " Little Rootie Tootie" has some sweet, swinging drum moments and the best way to describe their lugubrious-yet-cheerful rendition of "I Mean You": brush-lush-tastic (another joint on which the drumming shines as Östrom lays down the lutefisk...on "Evidence" the Trio turns up the heat during a brisk workout that puts the spotlight on Esbjörn's who show's that he can punch his body-weight when he's hunched over a piano...unlike the professional amateur mentioned above, Svensson's got the Scandinavian minerals to pull it off...not to get hyperbolic but it's a real revelation to hear someone else vibe on Thelonious' "tongue-in-cheek-complexity" and nail it-- love the way he drops out of that oh-so-Monk run around 4:14...nothin' but the truth, son...they hook shit up later in a similar fashion on "Criss Cross" as well...I found myself liking their rendition of the Monk staple "Bemsha Swing" just as much as I like John Coltrane and Don Cherry's version of it as well...






















...music: it's the gift that keeps on giving...I've been listening to this LP a great deal since I got hooked up with it last month...and the tune I've been really vibing on is the EST's version of "In Walked Bud" which I'll close out this review with (according to lore, this is literally the tune that Esbjörn's father, a jazz musician, himself had spinning on the turntable as his toddler son learned to walk...probably untrue but I like the circle-of-life feel of the tale )...I don't think the Plays Monk is OOP, so if you see that freaky-ass, cubist cover staring at you from a record bin across the room, calmly adjust that fedora (that you're no doubt wearing), look around the room...then slowly ease over to it and snatch it up ...then do that little "Eureka jig" like Walter Huston did in the flick The Treasure of the Sierra Madre...because, Bogey, you've just found yourself some jazz gold...

(to turn off iVoon to listen to track below, click pause on the clickwheel of the iPod in sidebar)

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(If you're down, there's another track available over on my music blog )

Thelonious Monk: Live @ the It Club (Review)

...Thelonious Monk (above, left, at Minton's in NYC, circa '47) is one of those way-out-there jazz originals who, along with laying down the foundation for hard bop, tended to color his sonic pastiche outside the margins of even the loosely applied fringes of serious jazz (all the while maintaining a sense of humor that he'd sprinkle over everything he did)...in doing so, he's issued a grip of great studio work and sounded even better on live recordings...such is the case on his Live at the It Club set which was grabbed during a gig at L.A.'s storied jazz club which no longer exists in the brick-and-mortar real but is still kept alive in memory through old pictures and recordings...Live at the It Club takes you there (you can actually hear bottles and glasses clinking at quiet points)...recorded in 1964, when the pianist's chops were in full flower, it was wrapped up over a couple of nights as the Monk made his rounds on the West Coast ...


























...while Monk is the keystone holding the ensemble in place, the lineup of the staff on hand includes hard-hitting sidemen: Charlie Rouse (tenor sax), Larry Gales (bass) and Ben Riley (drums) who all come together and yield one of the finer live jazz albums out there...to be certain, this double disc set has highlights all over the place but, if it's your first time checking the LP, the list of tunes to listen for begin with "Straight No Chaser", a swingin' number that sets the mood for everything that follows in it's wake...other hotspots include "Teo", "Bright Mississippi" (both of which were previously unreleased on the original pressings), "Blues Five Spot", "Evidence", "Nutty" , "Epistrophy (Theme)" (first recorded when he played in Coleman Hawkins' outfit during the salad days) and "Bemsha Swing" (...I first heard John Coltrane and Don Cherry's cover of this on a JC album which made me dig a little deeper)...too, it must be noted, there's a couple of joints that the newly initiated will either grow into over time or just not dig, for instance, "Gallop's Gallop" is a minor, dischord number that has an acquired taste (I dig it now, but not the first couple of times I heard it)... "Misterioso" gets really weird for a second but hold tight, it settles back into a calcified groove after that "wig-out" moment...

























...some Scrapple from the Apple...from what I've learned over the years, that was Monk's way, slippin' his audience a mickey on the DL-- he'd reel his audience in and BAM, slip some experimental shit into the mix, once he had their noses wide open as he circles back on that weird, modal jumping thing at the end but what the hey, that's one of the reasons why I love the guy's music-- when I first started checking him, every listen was like opening up a box of chocolates from Mama Gump...I never knew what I was going to hear...yeah, I went there, son...as I type this, I realize I could close in tight on historical minutia but I won't, if you want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, I know you will... I'll let the tunage speak for itself by posting a couple more jams-to-check-first below (surprise!) ...if you dig on live jazz; want to get into it but don't know where to start, cop Thelonious' Live at the It Club set, it'll do you right...in terms of piano, it's up there with Kind of Blue, in my book...here's my favorite cut on the album, "Well, You Needn't"-- when the time comes, Thelonious plucks out a blinding groove that opens the door for a stand up bass solo by Gales which eventually breaks down with a "shave-and-a-haircut" tag...the ensuing phat-bottomed drum workout from Riley, is just icing on the cake (check how he digs in just as everyone seamlessly drop back into the fold on the 1 and roll on out)...these cats were playing their hearts out while throwing it on the It Club's stage and it's also evident that they were having a ball....just like the patrons who walked through the doors on the nights that this album got recorded...it feels like you're right there...

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....click the header or here to check a few more cuts from this album....