Barron

The third in a series of Charlie Haden duet projects for Verve in the 1990s finds the increasingly nostalgia-minded bass player working New York City's Iridium jazz club with pianist Kenny Barron. Moreover, it is entirely possible that we are getting a skewed view of the gig; according to Haden, he and his co-producer wife Ruth tilted this album heavily in the direction of romantic ballads, eliminating the bebop and avant-garde numbers that the two may have also played at the club. Be that as it may, this is still a thoughtful, intensely musical, sometimes haunting set of performances, with Barron displaying a high level of lyrical sensitivity and Haden applying his massive tone sparingly…

Pianist and composer Kenny Barron, a towering figure in the jazz world with 13 Grammy nominations and induction into the American Jazz Hall of Fame, has been at the helm of sophisticated post-bop for many decades, never shying away from reinventing jazz standards, reshaping his own originals, or composing anew. He does all that in his latest album, Beyond This Place, for which he enlisted a multigenerational group featuring rising star saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, veteran vibraphonist Steve Nelson, and his regular rhythm team of bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Johnathan Blake.

Fly Me to the Moon compiles a pair of tenor saxophonist James Moody's mid-'60s sessions for the Argo label. The 1962 date "Another Bag" vaults Moody far past his bop roots. Another in a series of collaborations with arranger and composer Tom McIntosh, its rich, deep sound is both fiercely cerebral and nakedly emotional. Paired with a superb group including pianist Kenny Barron, trumpeter Paul Serrano, trombonist John Avant, bassist Ernest Outlaw and drummer Marshall Thompson, Moody creates a thoughtful interpretation of the emerging soul-jazz idiom that is both consciously hip yet surprisingly introspective; the music is both angular and accessible, bolstered by a clutch of clever, dynamic McIntosh melodies…