Steve Kuhn Trio @ Jazz Bakery 09.17.08
By George W. Harris

Knowing that Steve Kuhn was John Coltrane’s pianist before giving way to McCoy Tyner should explain all you need to know about the importance of having someone like Kuhn come into town, particularly since he brought in all stars Steve Swallow/b and Al Foster/dr to partake in the musical pleasures. His combination of perfectly clean articulation, tasteful selection of notes with an adventurous sense of melodious improvisation was all in abundance, as he opened up with glowing treatments of standards like “There Is No Greater Love” and “Like Someone In Love.” On the former, he warm coaxing of the keys conversed with the Foster’s incessantly joyful and multi-colored drumming. On the latter, Swallow’s elastic sounding bass strolled amongst the lilacs while Kuhn and Foster provided a gazebo-like frame. A rapturous take of “Jitterbug Waltz” featured a long and luminescent intro by Kuhn sweetly gliding into a waterfall-like flowing of notes. Foster, playing with the rhythm, took the Waller classic from a gentle groove, popped the clutch, and took the band into wonderful overdrive, carefully bringing the team back, and parking right between the lines at the end. The closing medley “Trance/Oceans In The Sky” had Kuhn’s Chopinesque piano solo, churned by Foster’s gently rumbling drum work, evoke pastoral images of shining light during a summer rain, leading to Foster and Swallow driving the music to a volcanic climax. Each musician a leader in his own right, they joined together this night at the Bakery two show truth to the Bible verse, “A chord of three strands is not easily broken.”