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Kenny Barron: The Traveler
by Mark F. Turner
It would be quite a feat to have traveled in Kenny Barron's shoes. A venerable pianist whose career has spanned more than fifty years of performances with a host of greats--Lee Morgan, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef, Charlie Rouse and many others. His music has traveled across the paths of blues, bop, modern, and other terrains. Whether working with vocalists such as jazz diva, Abbey Lincoln or taking Brazilian music excursions in Canta Brasil (Sunnyside Records, 2002), Barron has ...
Continue ReadingKenny Barron: A Musical Autobiography
by Victor Verney
Kenny Barron has achieved recognition, long overdue, as one of the giants of modern mainstream jazz piano. Born in Philadelphia in 1943, he moved to New York in 1961, where he worked briefly with James Moody, Lee Morgan, Roy Haynes and Lou Donaldson. He then had extended gigs with Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef and Ron Carter. After a stint as co-leader of the group Sphere in the 1980s, he went on to lead his own trios. One of ...
Continue ReadingKenny Barron Trio: The Perfect Set: Live at Bradley's II
by Ollie Bivens
From the '60s through the '80s, pianist Kenny Barron was one of the most sought-after sidemen in jazz, playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef, and Ron Carter, along with being a co-founder of the group Sphere, dedicated to performing the music of Thelonious Monk. Since the early '70s, Barron has put out several albums as leader. However, a series of live dates recorded with Stan Getz for four years up until the tenor's death in '91 brought Barron ...
Continue ReadingKenny Barron Trio: The Perfect Set: Live at Bradley's II
by Tom Greenland
In the Middle East, “tarab," a state of musical and spiritual ecstasy, is produced and maintained when a creative feedback loop is established between performers and listeners. The transformation is dependent not only on the skilled artisans, but on the environment created by the musically initiated audience. In jazz, people and place are equally important: Bradley's, in the Village, was one such place, where after-hours aficionados came to hear the best piano trio jazz that New York had to offer. ...
Continue ReadingKenny Barron Trio: The Perfect Set: Live at Bradley
by Michael McCaw
This music is immaculate. From the onset of “You Don't Know What Love Is and the suspended feel pianist Kenny Barron generates in his unaccompanied opening statement, entrancing listeners with his eventual development of the chorus, you know you are hearing a modern master of the piano. Bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Ben Riley are not too shabby either. Performing and recording off and on since 1984, this trio creates music that is pure, honest, and forthright. Not to mention ...
Continue ReadingKenny Barron: Images
by Russ Musto
Images introduces pianist Kenny Barron's “other" quintet--vibraphonist Stefon Harris, flautist Anne Drummond, bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa, and drummer Kim Thompson. The flute and vibes grouping gives this unit an appealingly distinctive sound that is airy but never light, sweet but not saccharine. Although somewhat limited tonally compared to the trumpet/saxophone frontline of Barron's classic five-man band, the group avoids the not improbable danger of monotony by performing a program that is rhythmically and dynamically diverse. Barron's first three compositions, “So It ...
Continue ReadingKenny Barron: Live at Bradley's
by Samuel Chell
One of a handful of truly great living jazz pianists, Kenny Barron has never sounded better to me on record. After listening to him in this setting, I'm beginning to understand why so many musicians lamented the passing of Bradley's, the Manhattan night spot that featured a grand piano handpicked and donated by Paul Desmond. If there's one performance on this recording that testifies to Barron's gifts, it's his exquisite and daring reading of Rodgers and Hart's “Blue Moon." He ...
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