Search - Jimmy Amadie :: In A Trio Setting: A Tribute to Frank Sinatra

Those who know the story of pianist Jimmy Amadie should recognize that "In A Trio Setting" represents not only an artistic triumph but a veritable miracle of will. Amadie, whose career in the 1950s and '60s involved work with such jazz luminaries as Red Rodney and Mel Tormé, has spent the years since virtually incapable of touching his instrument. He suffers from acute tendonitis, an inflammation of the tendons that marks every note he plays with searing pain. As a result, Amadie, who often keeps his hands in braces, has rarely been heard at the keys. Although a prominent presence in jazz education (his harmonic concepts have gained faithful adherents worldwide), the man has barely played in public at all over the past 40 years. Amadie's previous albums -- the fine solo piano outings "Always With Me" and "Savoring Every Note", in 1996 and '98 -- were assembled piecemeal, painstakingly, track by track. HIs newest release involved an even more rigorous process, taking a full five years to complete. The crucial difference between this and previous efforts is apparent in the title: "In A Trio Setting" documents Amadie's first-ever record leading an ensemble. How that ensemble came to be is a story in itself. Yet pathos is never the point of Amadie's music. Hear his crystalline touch and buoyant swing on "Love For Sale", and you forget that the man has suffered. Listen to the tender harmonic strokes of "Gone But Not Forgotten", and pain is the last thing on your mind. Ultimately, "In A Trio Setting" is a document not of anguish but overwhelming joy -- the joy of playing, and of hearing music articulated so beautifully, after all these years of silence. So even as Amadie admits he'll soon be heading back to the hospital for more treatment, he enthuses about the results of his labor. "these tuens are live", Amadie says with unconcealed glee. "You can't take that back."