Eric Reed

Eric Reed celebrates the music of Black and Brown composers on his deeply personal album Black, Brown, and Blue featuring a brilliant new trio with bassist Luca Alemanno and drummer Reggie Quinerly.

Eric Reed has recorded close to 30 accomplished leader albums showcasing his virtuosic chops, intellectual clarity, unwavering will to swing, and ability to refract and coalesce a wide range of musical, spiritual, and personal influences into a single stream of consciousness. Perhaps the most personal of them all is For Such a Time as This. It is a powerful and uplifting program framed by the realities of global pandemic anxiety, persistent racism and racial injustice, and an acrimonious, fraught Presidential election season.

Eric Reed's trio meeting with bassist Rodney Whitaker and drummer Willie Jones III covers a lot of musical ground. Starting with a dash through Benny Golson's "Stablemates," a playful interpretation full of quotes and detours into Monk-like chords and classical-flavored runs, Reed works effortlessly to keep the most familiar songs sounding new. John Coltrane's "26-2" is performed infrequently, but the pianist delights in its meandering theme as a challenge to his improvising skills. The sole standard is a sparse, lyrical arrangement of Rodgers & Hart's tearjerker ballad "It's Easy to Remember." The bulk of the session focuses on Reed's rewarding compositions. The jaunty "I.C.H.N. (For Herbie Nichols)" captures the spirit of a brilliant composer and pianist who was neglected by everyone except hip musicians during his all-too-brief life.

Pure Imagination finds pianist Eric Reed offering fresh arrangements of traditional pop songs from classic Broadway and Hollywood productions. Supported by bassist Reginald Veal and drummer Gregory Hutchinson, Reed offers tasteful, inventive versions of such songs as "Maria," "Hello, Young Lovers," "42nd Street," "Send in the Clowns," "Nice Work If You Can Get It" and "I Got Rhythm." It's a clever, engaging record that only confirms that Reed is a singular pianist.