What's New on WDCB... with Paul Abella

Ted Rosenthal Trio – High Standards (self-produced)

Pianist Ted Rosenthal paired himself up with two different trios on his latest album, High Standards, though the results are singularly great. Rosenthal himself has a nice touch at the piano, and whether that’s paired with Martin Wind & Tim Horner or Noriko Ueda & Quincy Davis on the bass and drums, you end up with a pleasant and swinging piano trio that sounds great on the standards and near standards heard here. To his credit, Rosenthal takes chances on these songs. “Jet Song” gets a bit of a second line groove that I’m sure Leonard Bernstein never had in mind. The solos on “Skylark” get swung at as fast of a tempo as I’ve ever heard Skylark played. He does play it a little more straight on “Lover Man” and “It Could Happen To You,” which both are arranged nicely here. All in all, Rosenthal’s High Standards pay off for listener and musician alike.

Enoch Smith, Jr. – The Book of Enoch, Vol. 1 (Misfitime Music)

For only seven songs and 46 minutes, Pianist Enoch Smith, Jr packs an awful lot of music into The Book of Enoch, Vol. 1. There’s the clear impact of Horace Silver’s playing, and also the undeniable influence of Robert Glasper, too. Mix that lineage with gospel songs past and present, and you get a quite interesting album. Joined by Kai Gibson on bass and David Hardy on drums, this trio does magnificent work on the classic spiritual “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” as well as Andrae Crouch’s “Soon and Very Soon” and Ralph Carmichael’s “A Quiet Place.” On Smith’s lone original here, “Gracefully,” he starts off with an impressive display of chops before moving on to a dynamic build and release that is pulled off, well, gracefully. For those who like their Jazz to sound like it’s gone to church, they’ll absolutely love The Book of Enoch, Vol. 1.

Art Hirahara – Peace Unknown (Posi-Tone Records)

Art Hirahara has made quite the name for himself over the past few years with a number of great trio and quartet albums on Posi-Tone Records. His latest, Peace Unknown, is a departure from the norm. Utilizing a talented septet, Hirahara conjures some excellent results out of these players over the course of nine compelling songs. Diego Rivera plays tenor saxophone, Michael Dease is the trombonist, Alex Sipiagin plays trumpet and flugelhorn, Boris Kozlov handles bass duties, Rudy Royston sits behind the drums, and the alto saxophone duties are split between Patrick Cornelius and Markus Howell. Nearly everyone on the session contributed an arrangement to the proceedings. Those different takes on Hirahara’s compositions make for vastly different ways to use a seven piece band. Hirahara’s approach is Jazz combo with four horns. Boris Kozlov’s take on “The More Things Change” is more in line with a mini-big band, and Diego Rivera’s two arrangements hint at a modern arranger like Maria Schneider, especially on “Drawing with Light.” What’s amazing is that considering that there are five arrangers on an album with nine songs, the disc still sounds of a piece. That’s got to be a testament to Hirahara’s writing and the skill of the band that was assembled to play these tunes, and those are no small feats.