Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Tivoli Trio: Tivoli Trio

264

Tivoli Trio: Tivoli Trio

By

View read count
Tivoli Trio: Tivoli Trio
Pianist Frank Carlberg's trio is named after the Tivoli amusement park he remembers from his youth in Helsinki, not the famous Tivoli Gardens amusement park in Copenhagen, Denmark, the second oldest amusement park in the world and a huge tourist attraction.

Carlberg's Tivoli is more of the roving carnivals or circus that might be associated with less family-friendly characters, tattooed carneys (before tattoos were cool) and alcoholic acrobats. But, then the show must go on, cotton candy pulled and ring tossed rings...tossed.

From his Finnish youth, Carlberg was educated at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory. His base of operations is now Brooklyn, and he has released several acclaimed discs with his quintet, including The American Dream (Red Piano, 2009), which scored music to the poetry of Robert Creeley.

Tivoli Trio distills Carlberg's vision to its creative essence. With the responsive drummer Gerald Cleaver and bassist John Hebert, Carlberg has his band of circus carneys. Their mischievousness is similar to that of Jason Moran's work in Bandwagon. The Tivoli Trio pushes the boundaries of the traditional piano trio with wit, aggressiveness and humor; their familiarity breeding waggish dynamism. Dropping a few samples into the short tracks "Into the Night...," "One Moment Please," and the opener "Fanfare," the trio stamps an original signature to the music, living the life of the circus barkers and hawkers in the funky odd-March of "Bill's Hat" and the forsaken and stark "Tea For Two"—which is stripped bare to reveal the cigarette smoke and foul breath of an old favorite, dusted off for a homesick rendition. Carlberg, Hebert and Cleaver know the jazz trio shtick, but choose to zig into other directions, rather than zag. They resurrect pieces of Bud Powell on the bouncing "Potholes," and bits of angular modernism with "Tumbles," all the time keeping a tight-knit approach to the jazz trio.

Track Listing

Fanfare; Tricks; The Chase; Rumble Mumble; One Moment, Please!; Bill's Hat; Two For Tea; Highwire; Potholes; Spit (The Game); Tumbles; Harlequin; ...Into The Night....

Personnel

Frank Carlberg
composer / conductor

Frank Carlberg: piano; John Hebert: bass; Gerald Cleaver: drums.

Album information

Title: Tivoli Trio | Year Released: 2010 | Record Label: Red Piano Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




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

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

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.