The sonic character of New York City's Village Vanguard is one of sound as memory. There is a pillow of pungent warmth and familiarity surrounding the sounds captured that can be heard on this album. That famous sound is captured in all its smoky warmth on the Bill Carrothers Trio A Night At The Village Vanguard. Carrothers, along with close friend/pianist Marc Copland, has been instrumental extending the piano language created by Evans, transforming it from impressionistic to expressionistic, while retaining an introspective nature. Carrothers relies on Joyspring (2010), his recent tribute to the music of Clifford Brown, for a good part of the recital, kicking things off with the trumpeter's up-tempo "Tiny Capers," where the pianist extracts the bebop from Brown's hard bop. That is followed by a lengthy medley of Brown's "Joy Spring" coupled with Victor Young's "Delilah." Carrothers also draws on the compositions by Brown's pianist, Richie Powell, for "Gertrude's Bounce" and "Time," giving a full accounting of Brown's famous quintet with drummer Max Roach from the early and mid-'50s. Amid all of this hard bop, Carrothers throws in his sideways blues, "Home Row," from Home Row (2010), mixing in a bit of modernity as the pianist slowly incorporates the young and old into something new and vital. He does the same with his inventive and exciting "I Got Rhythm" montage, Discombopulated." This adds a level of performance tension that reveals Carrothers as a capable bandleader directing a performance for maximum listening pleasure. In the end, it is the exquisitely unique sonics of the room that crown this very fine performance. There is a nostalgic, analog warmth in these pieces that recall Evans' famous recordings 50 years ago, while at the same time showing how far piano trio practice has come since that time. Carrothers turns in a definitive trio set at the definitive jazz club. ~ Extract by C Michael Bailey, AAJ.
Pirouet
Records, PIT3056, 2011
Recorded
18th July, 2009 Live at The Village Vanguard, New York City
Musicians:
Bill
Carrothers - Piano
Nicolas Thys - Bass
Dré Pallemaerts - Drums
Tracklist:
CD1:
01. Tiny Capers {Clifford Brown} (5:33)
02. Joy Spring {Clifford Brown} / Delilah {Victor
Young} (9:01)
03. Gerkin For Perkin {Clifford Brown} (7:03)
04. Gertrude's Bounce {Richie Powell} (6:36)
05. Jordu {Duke Jordan} (7:08)
06. This Is Worth Fighting For {Jimmy Dorsey} (7:09)
07. Home Row {Bill Carrothers} (6:48)
08. News From Home {Bill Carrothers} (4:10)
09. Let's Get Lost {Jimmy McHugh, Frank Loesser}
(9:33)
10. Those Were The Days {Gene Raskin, Boris Fomin}
(6:12)
Time: 69:15
CD2:
1. Junior's Arrival {Clifford Brown} (8:40)
2. Time {Richie Powell} (7:55)
3. Jordan Is A Hard Road To Travel {Traditional}
(10:31)
4. Peg {Bill Carrothers} (8:48)
5. Blue Evening {Gordon Jenkins, Joe Bishop} (6:25)
6. Discombopulated {Bill Carrothers} (7:42)
7. Snowbound {Bill Carrothers} (8:37)
8. Days Of Wine And Roses {Henry Mancini} (7:16)
9. Our House {Bill Carrothers} (4:04)
Time: 70:04
Total Time: 02:19:19
Credits:
Producer,
Mixing, Photography - Jason Seizer
Recording Engineer - Jon Rosenberg
Mastering Engineer - Christoph Stickel
Cover Design - Konstantin Kern
