Search - Richie Beirach :: Zal

Marvelous and Subtle

Stephen Silberman | SF, CA USA | 08/05/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Another marvelous recording by this shockingly underrated pianist. This is a series of duets with two Japanese musicians, Yoshiaki Masuo (on guitar) and Terumasa Hino (on trumpet and flugelhorn). The album begins with the crystalline "Mavrodaphne," moves on to the song of Beirach's that Stan Getz used to love to play, "Broken Wing," and unfolds from there with a searching, subtle melancholy. The playing is highly sensitive -- Masuo sounds almost like an early John Abercrombie, and Hino's horns are silken. The album's sequence allows the emotional force of the improvisations to build with each track, and Beirach's solo reading of "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" is exquisite. (Is this where Fred Hersch got the idea for his devastating version of that tune?) All of Beirach's music should have a wider audience, and if Bill Evans and Jim Hall's "Undercurrent" is your idea of sublimity, you might love this."