Dave Bass Has a New Trio

Cover design for the album being discussed (from the Amazon.com Web page)

The last time I wrote about jazz pianist Dave Bass was when he released  the third installment in a series of albums entitled simply The Trio. The other members of his trio were Kerry Kashiwagi on bass and Scott Gordon on drums. This past Friday Tiger Turn released his latest album. This is yet another trio album, but the title is Trio Nuevo; and, as of this writing, it is available through an Amazon.com Web page that provides only an MP3 download. As readers may have guessed, this is a new trio album; but Bass is joined by two new players. The bass is now played by Tyler Miles, and Steve Helfand is the drummer.

As usual, Bass is the composer for the lion’s share of the tracks. This includes the latest effort of a “meeting of the minds” with Johann Sebastian Bach (who was no slouch when it came to improvising). The title of the track is “Three Views of Bach;” and, while I am not yet sure of the enumeration, I found the interleaving of Baroque and jazz riffs to be more engaging than I anticipated.

While Bass dominates as composer, there are also highly imaginative tracks based on tunes by Charlie Haden (“Sandino”) and Denny Zeitlin (“Offshore Breeze”). For those that may still be nostalgic for Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, there is a setting of Herman Hupfield’s “As Time Goes By,” which eases its way into the tune. Personally, I rather like the way in which Bass keeps the listener guessing about when the tune will actually show itself explicitly. Ironically, however, such a listener is likely to be disappointed by the time the track concludes, realizing that the tune has revealed itself only through its most telling of its fragments. This implicit approach to familiarity makes for an engaging contrast with the more explicit Bach riffs.

In other words these are tracks that are likely to please particularly attentive listeners. Some might wish to dismiss such an attitude as “snob appeal.” I prefer to call it just “having fun with the music!”