Ethan Iverson - Live At Smalls

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2000
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 65:52
Size: 152,4 MB
Art: Front

( 7:39)  1. Night and Day
( 3:59)  2. Chronology
( 5:07)  3. Theme From "Mr. Bean"
( 8:01)  4. The Look of Love
( 7:20)  5. Have You Met Miss Jones?
(10:43)  6. In Love in Vain
( 8:26)  7. How High the Moon
( 8:32)  8. You've Changed
( 6:01)  9. Blues Coda

Pianist Ethan Iverson and tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry focus on quirky readings of standards in this co-led band, which they've unofficially named "Sub-Standard." The quartet is completed by bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Jeff Williams, both of whom supply a kind of perpetually off-kilter rhythmic feel underneath the two adventurous soloists. The music's in tempo, but not quite Anderson rarely walks a bassline, for instance, instead reacting to the entire band in unpredictable ways. Loosely speaking, on records this style has been Iverson's calling card more than McHenry's, although the tenorist has no problem fitting right in. Recorded live at Smalls in New York, the album boasts a good, intimate sound. The band begins with a loopy Latin treatment of "Night and Day," and proceeds to offer similarly off-the-wall readings of "Have You Met Miss Jones" and "How High the Moon," making a point of deforming these played to death vehicles. In a more rueful mood, they render the lesser-known standard "In Love In Vain" and the ballad "You've Changed." McHenry's entrance on the latter is so exquisitely high and soft that it could be mistaken for a flute. The more unusual repertoire choices are Howard Goodal's "Theme from 'Mr. Bean,'" which oddly enough sounds like something Bill McHenry would write, and Burt Bacharach's "The Look of Love," played with a satisfying faithfulness to the written melody. Closing the set is McHenry's "Blues Coda," which, along with Ornette Coleman's "Chronology," represents the most modern portion of the set, at least in authorial terms. But Iverson and McHenry do all they can to make everything even the moldiest standard sound modern, in their distinctive sense of the term. ~ David R. Adler https://www.allmusic.com/album/live-at-smalls-mw0000114938

Personnel: Piano – Ethan Iverson; Double Bass – Reid Anderson; Drums – Jeff Williams; Tenor Saxophone – Bill McHenry

Live At Smalls

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Mark Turner & Ethan Iverson - Temporary Kings

Styles: Saxophone And Piano Jazz
Year: 2018
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 53:49
Size: 125,8 MB
Art: Front

(5:00)  1. Lugano
(5:44)  2. Temporary Kings
(5:55)  3. Turner's Chamber Of Unlikely Delights
(6:00)  4. Dixie's Dilemma
(4:44)  5. Yesterday's Bouquet
(6:49)  6. Unclaimed Freight
(7:15)  7. Myron's World
(4:24)  8. Third Familiar
(7:54)  9. Seven Points

Pianist Ethan Iverson and tenor saxophonist Mark Turner have a bond going back to the New York clubs of the ’90s, which incubated the current generation of jazz masters. They went on to major success, both individually and as members of the venerated Billy Hart Quartet. An Iverson-Turner duo project had long been in the works, and the lustrous sound couldn’t be more ideal for music of such depth and intimacy. 

The six Iverson pieces, including the solo piano meditation “Yesterday’s Bouquet,” are full of forbidding harmony, often approaching contemporary chamber music (true of Turner’s closing “Seven Points” as well). But the pulse of jazz is vividly present in Iverson’s abstracted blues on “Unclaimed Freight”; in “Dixie’s Dilemma” by the late Warne Marsh, a key Turner influence; and in Turner’s workhorse “Myron’s World,” honed here to its essence. ~ Editors' Notes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/temporary-kings/1416139368

Personnel:  Mark Turner - Saxophone;  Ethan Iverson - Piano.

Temporary Kings

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Ethan Iverson - The Purity Of The Turf

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2016
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:45
Size: 136,6 MB
Art: Front

(4:32)  1. The Purity Of The Turf
(5:20)  2. Song For My Father
(4:44)  3. Darn That Dream
(5:46)  4. Along Came Betty
(3:34)  5. Graduation Day
(6:16)  6. Confirmation
(5:36)  7. Kush
(4:56)  8. Sent For You Yesterday
(4:24)  9. Strange Serenade
(5:02) 10. Little Waltz
(5:12) 11. Einbahnstrasse
(3:18) 12. So Hard It Hurts

The Purity of the Turf is kind of a 'bucket list' moment for Ethan Iverson, who has always wanted to make a record with famous bassist Ron Carter. Iverson, pianist of the famous trio 'The Bad Plus', chose drummer Nasheet Waits to fill out the trio, because Waits represents the avant-garde as well as swing. Criss Cross records are level playing field, with everyone recording in the same studio in a single day: Thus the sporting title, 'The Purity of the Turf. ' The repertoire is mostly originals and jazz classics. A surprise highlight is the solo piano tribute to the late Paul Bley, 'So Hard it Hurts' by Annett Peacock. ~ Editorial Reviews https://www.amazon.com/Purity-Turf-Ethan-Iverson/dp/B01IAQC0I0

Personnel: Ethan Iverson – piano;  Ron Carter – bass;  Nasheet Waits – drums

The Purity Of The Turf

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Ethan Iverson & Lee Konitz - Costumes Are Mandatory

Styles: Piano And Saxophone Jazz
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:10
Size: 130,8 MB
Art: Front

(3:23)  1. Blueberry Ice Cream take 2
(7:03)  2. Try a Little Tenderness
(1:05)  3. It's You (Tempo Complex)
(4:54)  4. It's You
(5:33)  5. What's New
(4:47)  6. 317 East 32nd
(5:50)  7. Body and Soul
(4:42)  8. Blueberry Hill
(2:01)  9. A Distant Bell
(2:12) 10. Bats
(1:19) 11. Mr.Bumi
(2:36) 12. My New Lovers All Seem So Tame
(7:04) 13. My Old Flame
(3:34) 14. Blueberry Ice Cream take 1

Costumes Are Mandatory is very collegially advertised as a collaborative album featuring Ethan Iverson, Lee Konitz, Larry Grenadier, and Jorge Rossy. And while the music may indeed be collaborative, even multi-improvisational at times, it's Iverson's date and he's very clearly the leader. The record is envisioned as an homage to "a dialogue with," according to the liner notes the late blind pianist Lennie Tristano, who in addition to generally being credited as a founder of the 'cool school' (an oversimplification, to be sure), and an early avant-garde pioneer, was also a primary teacher and influence on Konitz (as well as tenorist Warne Marsh). Though he is often thought of as being a somewhat separate musical line from bebop, he was nonetheless a great admirer of Charlie Parker, playing on many of Bird's early recordings in the late 1940s, and later serving as a pallbearer in his funeral. Strangely, given its stated intent, there isn't a single composition credited to Tristano on the record. Iverson is well represented though, opening with his "Blueberry Ice Cream take 2" a relatively conventional blues with a quick walking bass line and catchy melody. The direct connection to Tristano is, of course, Konitz who's own playing in recent years has become freer, with very little melodic structure. Iverson lays out for Konitz' compact solo which has an airiness to it that floats above the straight-ahead structure of the tune. Iverson's piano work is, in places, more reminiscent of Thelonious Monk than Tristano.

The intro to "Try A Little Tenderness" is very reminiscent of Tristano's melancholy "Requiem" featuring broad, well- sustained chords before Konitz and the rhythm section rejoin with the melody. Konitz' straight ahead statement of the tune is uncharacteristic of much of his recent playing, and he barely deviates at all leaving the improvisation to Iverson. "It's You (Tempo Complex)" pulls a Tristano trick right out of the hat by overdubbing two pianos to psychedelic, effect. At only one minute long it's enough to convey the effect without overpowering the surrounding tracks. The following straight acoustic version of the song delivers some of Konitz' best most Konitz-like improvisations: loose and searching, endlessly inventive, but still melodic and delightful. According to the liner notes Konitz declined to play on "Blueberry Hill" stating "Sounds like something The Bad Plus should play instead." Costumes Are Mandatory might work best because the music and the musicians have either approached Tristano with completely different competing musical influences, or in the case of Konitz, having completely absorbed then transcended his former mentor. They're not trying to imitate Tristano, but they forge just enough of a connection to make a truly interesting record that's worth seeking out. ~ Greg Simmons https://www.allaboutjazz.com/costumes-are-mandatory-larry-grenadier-highnote-records-review-by-greg-simmons.php
 

Personnel: Ethan Iverson: piano; Lee Konitz: alto saxophone, vocals (track 13); Larry Grenadier; Jorge Rossy.

Costumes Are Mandatory

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Albert Heath, Ben Street & Ethan Iverson - Philadelphia Beat

Styles: Jazz, Post-Bop
Year: 2015
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 50:25
Size: 115,9 MB
Art: Front

(4:24)  1. Bag's Groove
(3:50)  2. Reets and I
(3:44)  3. I Will Survive
(4:49)  4. Concorde
(6:15)  5. Memories of You
(3:04)  6. Con Alma
(3:02)  7. Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme
(3:30)  8. Bye-Ya
(4:52)  9. Everything Must Change
(4:09) 10. Speak Low
(3:19) 11. Pentatonic Etude
(5:22) 12. Bakai

Eighty years of fragrance are those of Albert "Tootie" Heath , judging by the quality of the game basted in a trio with the plan of Ethan Iverson and the bass of Ben Street , a game now in its third and most successful hand, voted in the rules unwritten of the jazz school in Philadelphia. A Magisterium, to Heath, formed on lightness, taste subtraction, it said in decades of acquaintances at the top of the history of jazz (asArt Farmer to Yusef Lateef , as Dexter Gordon to John Coltrane, down to Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell ...) This trio seems to deepen the attitude of Iverson to break down to a minimum the syntax of the standards: where with the Bad Plus pianist uses the art of a baroque masked, with an overload of dynamics, here on the contrary he seems even to dry the pasta of the agreements, insisting on a melodic cantabile whose irregularities mention with continuous syncopations and thin contour colors. The bank that the low Street is able to offer the pianist stands out tonally sense that rhythm, chasing osmosis perfectly realized. The percussion of the great Heath start dancing and lead with extraordinary skill, suggesting unexpected openings, ironic asides, punctuation scathing. It is a different way short of remaking the classic feel of this formula, in a path that draws Iverson still following in the footsteps of a genealogy piano: John Lewis , Lennie Tristano ,Bud Powell , Thelonious Monk , Mal Waldron .

There is the scent of Modern Jazz Quartet in several episodes, the initial "Bag's Groove" to an enchanting "Concorde" which cites the beginning Heath the "I'm an Old Cowhand" rollinsiana. The Powell-Monk line (so to speak ..) passes through the beauty of "Reets and I" up to a luxury "Bye-Ya" which pays tribute to Heath Art Blakey and feels ... An alienating treatment is reserved the cult of the album "I Will Survive," loved by Iverson to the point of even sing live (heard years ago in trio Billy Hart ): here the theme is announced by a whirlwind of color scales and slightly dissonant harmony. But think now not too speculative transactions: the music remains clear and fresh, even in the simple magic tricks. How to confirm the literal reading of "Everything Must Change," with reference to that of Mal Waldron of almost thirty years ago, and the Afro-Cuban of "Bakai" which closes the program.  Libretto of very well done CD, with introductions to individual pieces of Iverson , vintage photos of Tootie with Hi-Tones and Bee-Boppers and other current, taken to the mythical Clef Club next door to friends Buster Williams , Mickey Roker , Sam Reed. ~ Stefano Merighi  https://www.allaboutjazz.com/philadelphia-beat-albert-tootie-heath-ethan-iverson-ben-street-sunnyside-records-review-by-stefano-merighi.php (Translate by Google)

Personnel: Albert Tootie Heath: drums; Ethan Iverson: piano, electric piano; Ben Street: bass.

Philadelphia Beat

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Albert Heath, Ethan Iverson & Ben Street - Tootie's Tempo

Styles: Jazz, Post-Bop
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 47:09
Size: 108,5 MB
Art: Front

(3:42)  1. The Charlston
(4:52)  2. Charade
(2:18)  3. Danube Incident
(5:39)  4. Stompin At The Savoy
(6:12)  5. Violets For Your Furs
(4:04)  6. The Intimacy Of  The Blues
(5:07)  7. How Insensitive
(3:44)  8. Fire Waltz
(1:46)  9. Cute
(4:28) 10. It Should Have Happened A Long Time Ago
(5:12) 11. Tootie's Tempo

At 78 years old, Albert “Tootie” Heath is certainly a link to jazz history. This is due to both his lineage as the youngest of the three jazz-playing Heath brothers and his many accomplishments as a musician on his own. Here, pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Ben Street join Heath, and the results are as satisfying as a visit with a favorite old uncle. The music is straight-down-the-middle bebop with a strong emphasis on ballads and relaxed midtempo gems. Ever the gentleman, Heath plays here with subtlety and elegance, setting his tempos and throwing in little rhythmic wrinkles rather than banging away on solos. Just listen to his playing on “The Intimacy of the Blues,” the title track, and “Cute” to see what we mean. The often-pensive material here ranges from a fun, un-flapper-like version of “The Charleston” to the lovely theme from the film Charade to an earthy take of the bossa nova classic “How Insensitive.” Then things do pick up for a robust version of “Fire Waltz.” It's highly recommended for fans of classic jazz. ~ Itunes Reviews https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/tooties-tempo/id676272985

Personnel:  Bass – Ben Street;  Drums – Albert Heath;  Piano – Ethan Iverson

Tootie's Tempo

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