Artist: Dorian Ford

Date of Release:

Catalogue no: 1374

Label: -

Price: £8

Add to Shopping Basket

Track Listing

Appearances by

Patrick Levett

Recorded Live at The Space, London, May 2007

Dorian Ford - piano
Tom Herbert - bass
Pat Levett - drums

A post-modern approach and a personal tribute to the late Bill Evans, this trio evolved from an exercise in transcription, in which Dorian transcribed the whole of the album ‘How My Heart Sings’, including bass and drum parts. The trio rehearsed the album note for note, whilst, in performance, they play the tunes as they would any other Jazz Standard. The rigorous foundation is a springboard from which the players chart new and unknown territories.

Reviews

08/05/2007 John Miles, Evening Standard

To hear a piano trio reconstruct performances from a 1962 Bill Evans session might be disconcerting. In reality this superb trio seems immersed in the mutually supportive ethos Evans sought to establish with his fellow musicians. Dorian has been working on the Bill Game for fifteen years. Given the intense musical intelligence that lay behind the original music prolonged study seems appropriate: Bill Evans calls for the same attention we bring to Bartok. Nor does this sound like the performance of transcriptions. A brief chat with drummer Pat Levett at half-time revealed the extent to which the trio were colouring and inflecting the performances in the present. Four of Evans' own compositions were played: the jaunty, difficult, up-tempos of 'Walkin' Up' and 'Show Type Tune' burst into life, while the complex ballad 'Very Early' was spell-binding. Dorian is an aficionado of Keith Jarrett, and often borrows his deployment of extended codas. The decision to close the performance by following 'My Romance' with 'Waltz for Debbie' and then to encore with 'My Foolish Heart' might have been made to draw down Jarrett's gospelly religiosity. Moving and meditative though this sequence was, it stayed true to the more secular sensibility at the heart of the project. Let’s hear it all again soon, please.