Search - Frank Kimbrough :: Play

Perhaps not quite as accessible as his previous trio discs .

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 05/19/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

". . . but in the end, more satisfying. What this shows, I think, is the growth of Frank Kimbrough in all areas of jazz music: as composer, as leader, as sideman selector, as conversation partner, and as improviser. With Play, we are party to the continued emergence of this man as a major figure on the early 21st century jazz landscape.



You've got to hand it to Kimby; he's always up for a new challenge. Instead of sitting back in a comfort zone with musicians he's known for years, he sets up a date with guys he's infrequently (bassist Masa Kamaguchi) or never (drummer Paul Motian) played with before. Then, they record this music with no practice whatsoever, set up in the same room, and without headphones. Consequently, the music has a freshness and in-the-moment quality seldom encountered in jazz sessions these days.



Isn't this what art is, taking the base, painful, and upsetting experiences of everyday living and through the alchemic aesthetics of composition, group interaction, and improv, transmuting them into golden treasures of musical expression? That's certainly what's happening throughout this magical disc, most forcefully and poignantly on "Waiting in Santander," but truly everywhere else as well.



There's a searching, a restlessness here not as regularly encountered on his other brilliant trio albums--and it pops up in the most unexpected places, for example, on "Jimmy G," a blues in 3/4 time. The analogous form here, almost a photographic negative, is the valse triste, only instead of a sad waltz, we've got a happy blues--or a least an unmournful one. Yes, it's a blues, all right, but there's a tricky ameliorating element, expressed through extended chords, that mitigates its melancholy. It's there again on "Regeneration," a duo with Kamaguchi, written shortly after the events of 9/11. A piece both introspective and ravishingly beautiful--not something easy to pull off--this tune presents Kimbrough in his most Bill Evans-ish mode where the pianist exhibits equal amounts of delicacy, force, and mystery.



With this disc, Frank Kimbrough emerges as perhaps the greatest jazz pianist on the scene today. Not as chops-heavy as Jean-Michel Pilc, not as percussive as Vijay Iyer, not as romantic as Kenny Werner, not as technically brilliant as Mathew Shipp or Craig Taborn, not as "out" as Myra Melford or Marilyn Crispel, not as wildly creative as John Wolf Brennan, not as attractively arcane as Cooper-Moore, not as glib as Hiromi or Taylor Eigsti, not as world-jazz oriented as Omar Sosa or Gonzalo Rubalcaba, he instead combines elements of all these players into his own unique voice and comes out as the champ in terms of scope of conception and attractiveness of execution.



This man is the pioneer and perfecter of modern jazz piano. Catch him at the absolute top of his game with Play. I guarantee you won't be disappointed."