JAZZ : NEW RELEASES : Winning Performances From Oscar Peterson Trio Plus One : **** OSCAR PETERSON “Saturday Night at the Blue Note” <i> Telarc</i>
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In a welcome follow-up to a successful first volume recorded in early 1990 at the New York club, the Peterson trio, plus drummer Bobby Durham, goes through the same swiftly swinging motions with impeccable results. Two of the cuts are blues; another is an elegant Peterson original, “Song to Elitha.”
Guitarist Herb Ellis has never cooked more compellingly. Bassist Ray Brown supplies the same firm foundation he offered when he, Peterson and Ellis toured the world as a permanent unit from 1953 to 1958.
A highlight is Peterson’s piano solo track, a moving rendition of Willard Robison’s “Old Folks.” After hearing Peterson, not to mention guitarist Peter Leitch, some skeptics may be convinced that jazz is, in the final analysis, an Africanadian art form.
In Brief
*** 1/2 Gonzalo Rubalcaba, “The Blessing,” Blue Note. Charlie Haden, the bassist, did not have to defect from America when he took his band to Cuba in 1986. Yet Rubalcaba, the brilliant Havana-based pianist he met during that tour, is denied similar freedom to visit the United States. Because of immigration red tape, Rubalcaba had to meet Haden and drummer Jack DeJohnette in Toronto to record this album for U.S. release. Here is a wild talent: now overwhelmingly technical, now ruminatively lyrical. Best cuts are the pianist’s own “Mima,” Haden’s charming “Sandino” and Ornette Coleman’s “The Blessing.”
New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four (excellent). A rating of five stars is reserved for classic reissues or retrospectives.
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