Kenny Barron / Ray Drummond / Ben Riley: So Many Lovely Things: Live in Brecon

Search high and low, look under houses and over rooftops, scan YouTube and social media—and there is no chance you will find a more adept and perceptive jazz trio than the one you will hear and appreciate on So Many Lovely Things. Pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Ben Riley recorded the two-disc album in August 1995 at the Brecon Jazz Festival in Wales, and it is by any measure a textbook lesson in how to do everything exactly right.

While the plaudits must begin with Barron, the trio's melodic core, no pianist could wish for more unwavering support than he receives from Drummond and Riley who endorse his every nuanced gesture with the sort of empathetic response that can only be earned by spending years in the jazz trenches. That awareness gives Barron the freedom he needs to pursue whatever harmonic and improvisational avenues he desires, an advantage he embraces to the fullest extent possible.

When Barron performs alone, as he does on three of the album's 10 numbers, his exceptional ingenuity and taste belie the need for a supporting cast, but he is nonetheless pleased to have Drummond and Riley in his corner on the other seven. Speaking of taste, that is a hallmark of the concert as a whole including the astute choice of material, which includes a pair of Barron's luminous original compositions, two more by Thelonious Monk, a trio of paradigms from the Great American Songbook, Freddie Hubbard's cheerful "Up Jumped Spring," Gabriel Luna's "Time Was" and Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" from the Broadway musical Oklahoma!

The standards are the early Frank Sinatra classic "Oh, Look at Me Now," Ray Noble's handsome ballad, "The Very Thought of You," and the soulful "Canadian Sunset," written and popularized in 1956 by another fairly well-known pianist in his day, Eddie Heywood. Barron's compositions are "Silent Rain" and "Nikara's Song," the last written for a "very precocious" six-year-old granddaughter, while Monk wrote "Shuffle Boil" and the better-known "Ask Me Now," which closes Disc 1. Tempos are generally slow to moderate, with "Surrey" the closest to any that could be labeled a flag-waver. Barron's blazing solo on "Fringe" calls to mind the nimblest and most masterful improviser of them all, Barron's Canadian counterpart, the great Oscar Peterson.

Barron announces most of the songs, which is rarely the case on concert recordings, and his brief comments, even though casual, offer a welcome change of pace. Drummond and Riley, for their part, let the music speak for itself, remaining for the most part comfortable in their supporting roles, although Drummond designs several efficient solos and Riley adds at least one more. The concert flows seamlessly from one engaging number to the next, and there are So Many Lovely Things on offer that portraying its spirit and essence poses a challenge. Suffice to say that it is awesome from start to finish, and that Barron, Drummond and Riley are essentially unrivaled when doing what they do best.