Search - Kenny Werner :: Naked in the Cosmos

Kenny Werner in a big band setting . . .

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 12/17/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

". . . would never have occurred to me. Nor to him, it seems. There's simply too much lyricism to his piano playing for it to be subsumed under a horde of brass.But you know what? This works marvelously. Certainly the Brussels Jazz Orchestra is an extraordinary group of musicians. As leader Warner says, "Nobody in this band just mails it in." Instead, there are consistently interesting, sometimes completely mesmerizing, arrangements and playing, the most ambitions of which occur on "Sasumi," the last, longest, and most satisfying number on the disc. Kenny Werner is a special player, vastly underappreciated, in my view (see my review of his disc, Beauty Secrets), and "Uncovered Heart," on the disc of the same name, is one of the most purely beautiful jazz recordings ever.Lost in the Cosmos may take a little getting used to, but stick with it; there's a huge payoff."