Greg Reitan: Post No Bills

Los Angeles-based pianist/composer Greg Reitan's Some Other Time (Sunnyside Records) vied for the honors of "Debut of the Year" in 2009. Using his same trio—with bassist Jack Daro and drummer Dean Koba—Reitan followed up that auspicious start with two more outstanding sets, Antibes (2010) and Daybreak (2011), both for the Sunnyside label.

With this same trio—they have been together since 1996—he has honed an elegant and polished sound, drawing on a Bill Evans influence—the light touch, subtle dynamics, translucent harmonic beauty. Post No Bills builds on that approach, with a bit more of an edge this time around, beginning with the opening cut, Keith Jarrett's "The Mourning of a Star," laid down as pure kinetic energy, a train trundling down the tracks at a good clip, the notes and rhythms contained in a confined space and moving inexorably forward. The often-covered "Stella By Starlight" opens with the sultry stealth of a deep-in-the-bones bass solo bass that segues into breakneck pace, illuminating Stella as a fast lady indeed under the light of the stars. Chick Corea's "Windows" slides along with a brisk momentum, propelled by the Koba/Daro drive-train.

There are also reflective moments, outside of time ruminations like Joe Sample's "One Day I'll fly Away," Horace Silver's melancholy "Lonely Woman," and pianist Denny Zeitlin's pensive "After The War," and the tenderest, most beautiful take on George Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy" imaginable, suffused with a sense of yearning.

Reitan includes three of his own top-notch compositions: "Spring," bright and hopeful; "Post No Bills," which begins with a segment of poetic introspection that gives way to a high-spirited, bump-shoulders-in-the-crowd gregariousness.

Reitan and the trio wraps up with the somber (in the beginning) "Solitude," dark and lovely, with Reitan lifting out of the into light briefly before settling back down into the dusk. A beautiful ending.