Alan Broadbent Trio Returns to Savant

courtesy of Play MPE

My efforts to catch up on my queue led me this morning to the second album by the Alan Broadbent Trio for Savant Records. Led by Broadbent at the piano, the other trio members are Harvie S on bass and Billy Mintz on drums. Over the course of his rich career, Broadbent has worked with an extensive number of trios, but this one seems to have made its recording debut with the Savant Album New York Notes in March of 2019. The title of the new album, which was released a little over three months ago, is Trio in Motion.

One way to describe this new release is as a not-quite-standards album. As Kirk Silsbee puts it in his notes for the accompanying booklet, “Broadbent continually looks into the neglected corners of the jazz repertory and the Great American Songbook for material.” My guess is that this resulted from having studied in one of those “neglected corners” with jazz pianist Lennie Tristano, who is represented on Trio in Motion by “Lennie’s Pennies.” Unless I am mistaken, Tristano first recorded that piece (at least under that title) in 1952 with his primary “partners in crime,” saxophonists Lee Konitz (alto) and Warne Marsh (tenor). Again according to Silsbee, under Tristano’s influence, “Broadbent spent a lot of time listening to the great recorded saxophone solos of Lester Young and Charlie Parker;” and Trio in Motion also includes two Parker originals, “Relaxin’ at Camarillo” and “The Hymn.”

Another adventurous saxophonist also figures in Broadbent’s repertoire. John Coltrane is represented with a performance of “Like Sonny,” a perfect example of one saxophonist honoring the virtues of another. (Fate has been kind enough to allow me to listen to both of them in concert performances.) An even earlier instance of adventurous tunes and progressions can be found in Tadd Dameron’s “Lady Bird,” which dates back to 1939 and marks the emergence of modernism that would develop into bebop.

However, there is far more breadth to Trio in Motion than Broadbent’s take on the origins of bebop and the reverberations of those origins. He also serves up takes on less familiar tunes by both Hoagy Carmichael (“One Morning in May”) and Cole Porter (“I Love You”), as well as “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue,” which Lil Hardin Armstrong wrote for Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. That last selection involves a somewhat unexpected twist. Recognizing that his trio lacks the proper instrumentation for the raucous Dixieland spirit, Broadbent reconceived the tune as a samba.

Finally, Broadbent has his own presence as a composer on the “I Hear You” track, as well as in “Moonstones,” the final track, which is composed collectively by the entire trio. As a result, there is considerable diversity across the twelve tracks on Trio in Motion. What is important is that each of those tracks speaks in its own characteristic voice, reflecting on the past while admiring it from the viewpoint of the immediate present.