Kenny Barron: So Many Lovely Things: Live in Brecon

By the mid-1990's, piano icon and NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron had completed his transition from being a dependable, workhorse pianist-for-hire that elevated any group that had the good sense to engage him, to one of the most revered musicians in the business, and a living bridge between hard bop tradition and 21st century jazz modernity. It was at this point when Barron, along with his cohorts during this period—dearly-departed accompanists Ray Drummond (bass) and Ben Riley (drums), who had all being playing together in different formations for decades at this point—played the Brecon Jazz Festival in Brecon, Wales in August 1995.

Jordi Suñol, a longtime Spain-based jazz manager and promoter who represents Barron and other high-level musicians in Europe, recorded the session. "Jazz Detective" Zev Feldman, in cooperation with the Jordi Suñol Archives, unearthed and released the live set as So Many Lovely Things: Live in Brecon. The live recording, the quality of which is top-notch, is an excellent demonstration of Barron's musical stature at this point, and it is the perfect showcase of the qualities that Barron brings as a masterful practitioner of straight-ahead jazz.

The collection is well-titled; "lovely" is really the perfect word to describe the music. So Many Lovely Things may not satisfy a listener looking for the breaking of ground or left-field experimentation. It is as straight-ahead as straight-ahead gets. However, one would be hard-pressed to find a piano trio with the skill or chemistry of this particular trio outside of the Bill Evans/Ahmad Jamal pantheon.

Barron and his mates elevate the covers of standards they present, mostly ballads or mid-tempo exercises. The band's version of Freddie Hubbard's classic "Up Jumped Spring" is stunning, with Barron kicking off the song with a striking solo that powerfully yet delicately runs through Hubbard's melodic motif before the rhythm section kicks in to bind the music together. "Time Was," made famous by John Coltrane with his sextet on the early album Coltrane (Prestige Records, 1958), is a fairly quick-tempo jaunt by the trio, with Barron once again beginning the track with his trademark virtuosity, before Drummond and Riley get a chance to cook.

"The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" (from Oklahoma! (Angel Records, 1955)) could have been, even in 1995, a fairly trite selection given the ubiquity of the song and the source material. But the joy the trio imbues in the piece reminds the listener of how wonderful the tune really is, and the universality of its pure giddiness. "The Very Thought of You," the Barron trio's elegant take on the 1934 Ray Noble standard, brilliantly modernizes the "sweet band" classic. Despite the outdoor, open-air setting of the performance, the trio is gorgeously intimate, and the treatment is a perfect distillation of Barron's mastery of the ballad form and the piano trio structure generally.