At home Digipack

Description

The piano, guitar, double bass trio is to jazz what the string quartet is to classical music: one of the hardest things to master; the listening between the partners must be at its highest level, the balance of forces must achieve perfect equilibrium, and each person’s ego must be kept in check. But this osmosis, when it succeeds, brings great joy to the performers as well as to the listener. This instrumental formula has had great forebears, starting with the trio of pianist and singer Nat “King” Cole, which from the outset reached the highest perfection, influencing all those who would follow him along this royal road. Curiously, since the 1960s, few young musicians have taken up this particular trio format as their own. Hence the interest in this record, which reconnects in fine fashion with a tradition thought to be lost. Fred Nardin simply defines the project “as an echo of the great trios that make me dream, such as those of Nat King Cole or Oscar Peterson.” Mission accomplished: the trio’s obvious musical balance is also present in the choice of repertoire: a few well-known or lesser-known standards, reworked, reinvigorated, mixed with beautiful original compositions by Maxime Fougères and Fred Nardin that anchor them more firmly in the present. Their arrangements and solos are of the same caliber: heady, well-built, subtle. Worth noting is a composition by a little-known pianist: Dan Nimmer, who is Wynton Marsalis’s current swinging partner. Rarely heard on record today: a little impromptu, cool jam session like the kind made at home without constraint, among friends, after dinner. It is no surprise if this chamber jazz was recorded “at home,” perhaps after a good dessert? The “made at home” recording particularly highlights the “fine roundness” of each musician’s sound. It is easy to enter the intimacy of this trio through the garden gate. They share with us a freshness, a simplicity of tone, and a contagious pleasure in playing.