Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Roberta Piket Trio: Love and Beauty

178

Roberta Piket Trio: Love and Beauty

By

View read count
Roberta Piket Trio: Love and Beauty
Sitting in the middle of an interactive trio, pianist/composer Roberta Piket unplugs herself from her Alternating Current and delves deep into acoustic piano trio mode on Love and Beauty. Joined by bassist Billy Mintz and drummer Ratzo Harris, the set explores, by turns, lyrical loveliness, gentle loving affection, and sharp-edged abstraction with an old fashioned straight-at-you intensity underlain by a good deal of implacable momentum.

The disc opens with the Piket-penned "I'm My Everything," a tune that sounds as if it must be a rousing crowd-pleaser in her live sets. Shifting from a light-hearted groove into darker zones full of charged communal empathy, Harris' pulse fibrillates out of its steady pulse at times, while Mintz weaves airy textures behind Piket's succinct improvisation.

"For Uncle Harvey" is a caress of a song, a sweet and poignant ballad. The trio's take on Jimmy Webb's "Up, Up and Away," that felt a bit saccharine on the Fifth Dimension's take on the tune, gets an absorbing reshaping with Piket's improvisational flight from the familiar melody.

Mintz penned the three centerpiece tunes of the set. Flight" soars with light-stepping intensity, while "Love and Beauty" is wistful and tenderly introspective and "Destiny" lets Piket try out her vocal chops on a smoky, wee hours torch ballad featuring the smoldering saxophone of Rich Perry.

"Claude's Clawed" gets "out there" with a rolling spontaneity churning along behind Piket's spikey keyboard work, leading into the pensive Cole Porter gem, "So In Love."

Roberta Piket, unplugged on Love and Beauty turns in her strongest set to date.

Track Listing

I'm My Everthing; For Uncle Harvey; Up, Up and Away; Flight; Love and Beauty; Destiny; Alone Alone; Claude's Clawed; So In Love.

Personnel

Roberta Piket: piano, vocals (6); Billy Mintz: drums; Ratzo Harris: bass; Rich Perry: tenor saxophone (6).

Album information

Title: Love and Beauty | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: Thirteenth Note Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Roberta Piket Concerts


Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.