Tommy Muellner: Solitary Moon

Today's hipster jazz musicians do not play standards. Perhaps "poseur" is a better description for artists who deliberately eschew classic compositions. Yet standards and familiar songs serve an important purpose in jazz: they provide a shared musical language, a lingua franca through which musicians communicate and listeners can measure the quality of an interpretation. Maybe, just maybe, the poseurs avoid standards because they don't want to be found out.

Chicago pianist Tommy Muellner is no poseur. In fact, his choice of repertoire and the performances on Solitary Moon are, in every sense, hip. A mainstay of the Chicago jazz scene, Muellner, along with trumpeter Art Davis and drummer Phil Gratteau, has logged thousands of gigs and likely committed more music to memory than most musicians ever encounter.

Saxophonist and label head Geof Bradfield invited Muellner to expand the traditional piano-trio format into a quintet, adding himself on saxophones and bassist Clark Sommers. Muellner responds with a program that moves comfortably among standards, personal favorites and original compositions, demonstrating that familiarity need not mean predictability.

Jimmy Van Heusen's "Like Someone in Love" has been interpreted by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Cecil Taylor and Eric Dolphy. Muellner approaches it with an elegant swing and an affectionate touch, engaging in a relaxed conversation with Sommers and Gratteau's delicate brushwork. The same warmth permeates Van Heusen's "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," which recalls the lyrical sensibility of Bill Evans, another pianist who returned to the composition throughout his career. Muellner does not imitate Evans; rather, he finds a similarly intimate way into the song.

His original compositions fit naturally alongside the standards. The two sambas, "Cuz Tune" and "Sandy Samba (Ahma's Garden)," reveal his fondness for rhythm and melody. Bradfield's soprano saxophone lends "Cuz Tune" a graceful, singing quality, while on "Sandy Samba," his flute joins Davis' flugelhorn for an airy, sunlit texture. "Monk See, Monk Do" pays affectionate tribute to Thelonious Monk without resorting to caricature, while Muellner's interpretation of Steve Kuhn's "Oceans in the Sky" allows Bradfield's soprano to float above Gratteau's propulsive drumming.

The album's final sequence gradually strips away the ensemble. Two duos lead into a solo performance, creating the atmosphere of a jazz club approaching closing time. Muellner and Bradfield's reading of "Diane" is followed by "Danny Boy," whose familiar melody takes on the intimacy of a late-night farewell. Then Muellner returns alone for "Why Did I Choose You." His playing is so restrained and beautiful that the best response is simply to listen quietly.

Solitary Moon makes a persuasive case for the enduring power of repertoire. Muellner understands that playing a familiar song isn't about reproducing the past; it is about discovering something new inside music we thought we already knew. In his hands, standards become less like museum pieces than old friends.