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David Haney Trio: The Music
ByPriester took part in Haney's debut date for CIMP's sister label, Cadence Jazz. Haney also has associations with Lane from earlier groups, so the three share common ground from the start. Recorded, as is the CIMP custom for piano-inclusive projects, in the confines of the Gilbert Recital Hall in Canton on a hot summer day, the session fortunately doesn't suffer any adverse sonic effects from the heightened heat and humidity. Each of the instruments is cleanly audible and evenly spaced in stereo mix.
Even at their most flurried and fecund, Lane's rubberized plucks lose nothing in the way of resonance or reach, and the full range of Priester's slide and pucker-saturated inflections remains on voluminous display. Most of the pieces are collectively improvised, but all retain a strong structural integrity that recalls the pastoral chamber jazz of antecedents like the Giuffre 3 and some of Albert Mangelsdorff's trios from the 1970s.
The three players regularly exchange roles, Haney ushering the way amidst counterpoint from Priester and Lane, only to slip seamlessly into a secondary position as one or the other of his partners takes the lead. Lane's rich scything harmonics on "Ear to the Hive replace Priester's sputtering patterns in mimicking the sounds of buzzing bees. Haney's pedal-dampened rumbles and errant string tugs follow, leading into a coda populated by abstract legato shapes.
There's a fair share of theme-guided playing too, as on the two versions of "You Span the Distance where Lane walks a plump blues line and Priester locutes lubricious ballad-style phrases on top. A liquidity exists in the latter's tonality that makes his interplay with Lane all that more inviting and successful. Long story short, the septuagenarian statesman of the trombone sounds better than ever in this setting.
As a leader, Haney knows how to balance jocularity with severity, space with readily a discernable carapace that brings out the best in the trio. The pieces rarely resort to flash or memorable ornamentation, working instead as hollow vessels for the players to fill on the fly. The sagacious and spontaneous approach yields genuine thrills that are palpable as each one unfolds. It's cerebral improvised music that doesn't forsake its humanity or souland channeled through the novel instrumentation, it works like a charm.
Track Listing
Pteradactyl
Personnel
David Haney
pianoDavid Haney: piano; Julian Priester: trombone; Adam Lane: bass. Recorded August 12, 2005, Canton, NY.
Album information
Title: The Music | Year Released: 2006 | Record Label: CIMP Records