The Art of The Trio

The piano trio material included in this Japanese reissue, along with another session from late 1958 (see The Art of the Trio, aka "The 45 Sessions"), constitutes a body of work which was never released in LP format during Sonny Clark's tragically short life. Clark was an underrated master of the hard bop genre who had a very subtle, artful touch. On this date, he exhibits the influence of Ahmad Jamal and Red Garland (a lighter sound) and less of the Bud Powell-inspired, hard-driving bebop lines.

Twenty of the jazz world's greatest piano players with 20 of their most influential albums. The spectrum ranges from Bill Evans or Duke Ellington via Ramsey Lewis or Ahmad Jamal to Red Garland or Tommy Flanagan, through to Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, or the debut album's of Herbie Hancock and Cecil Taylor, or the first recordings of Thelonious Monk.

Graupner - "The Art of Imitation": Trio Sonatas
Classical, Baroque | 1 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG | Scans | 324 MB | TT: 65:24 | Rapidshare
Antichi Strumenti | Recording: 2002, Istituto Musica Antica, Mondovi | Released: 2004 | Label: stradivarius STR 33632

Christoph Graupner was one of the most prolific composers in Germany of his time. He wrote a large number of instrumental and vocal works, which until the last five years or so have been almost completely neglected. […]

The ensemble Antichi Strumenti has devoted a whole disc to Graupner's fascination for the canon and for the principle of imitation in general. It has selected 6 canons and also recorded all of Graupner's sonatas for 2 violins and b. c. […]

Brahms was a spirited, fair-haired youth of twenty-one when he composed his first chamber work, essaying the delicate art of the trio for piano and strings. The result was a masterpiece. Quartets, quintets, sextets followed… and many years went by before he returned twice more to the piano trio genre. The horn too was given its own trio, with a part that could be borrowed by the cello. The maturity and life experience he had gained left their mark over the years. The time had come for wisdom, gravity and nostalgia, while the inner passion and fire remained.

Anyone with an antenna out for an exciting, new(ish) piano trio would do well to give Yaniv Taubenhouse a listen. The Israeli-born and now New York-based pianist offers up his third recording, tagged Perpetuation: Moments In Trio Volume Two, bringing to mind Brad Mehldau's five Art of the Trio recordings on Warner Brothers Records, released between 1997 and 2001.
Taubenhouse studied with Mehldau, and the disc's opening title tune has a Mehldau-ian feel, with a persistent but understated rhythm pushing a wandering melody ahead. A lovely, inward mood pervades, with the pianist locked into sonic symbiosis with drummer Jerad Lippi and bassist Rick Rosato…

Brad Mehldau did an exceptional job of keeping his stellar trio together for seven years, as proven by his fine Art of the Trio dates and 2004's Anything Goes. But Jorge Rossy, the group's drummer, began spending more and more time away from music and at his home in Spain. Mehldau, who is almost prolific in his recording process, recruited drummer Jeff Ballard to replace Rossy on Day Is Done.