Kenny Barron & Ray Drummond & Ben Riley - So Many Lovely Things: Live in Brecon

Elemental Music will release The Kenny Barron Trio: Live at the Brecon Jazz Festival, Wales 1995, an interactive, inexorably swinging document of “real jazz” by Barron’s superb go-to 1990s trio with bass titan Ray Drummond and Thelonious Monk’s drummer of choice, Ben Riley. The album will appear as a deluxe, limited-edition 180-gram 3-LP and 2-CD set on June [tk]. Lacquers were cut by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas, and pressed at GZ Media in Loděnice, Czech Republic. The previously unissued concert came to Elemental through veteran Spanish promoter Jordi Suñol, who organized Kenny Barron’s appearance at the 1995 Brecon Jazz Festival. The performance was recorded by Jed Williams, then the festival’s director, and the tapes remained in the private possession of Williams and Suñol until 2024. That year, Suñol and Elemental president and founder Jordi Soley—an old friend—revisited Suñol’s holdings and agreed to release the concert as part of Elemental’s renowned archival series. After receiving licensing approval from Barron and his management, with whom they remained in close contact throughout the preparation process, Elemental brought award-winning “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman on board as producer. The package includes liner notes and detailed tune annotations by Ted Panken. Live at Brecon is Barron’s fourth licensed concert album within an extraordinarily consistent corpus of more than 50 recordings, on which the 82-year-old NEA Jazz Master has presented his rarefied pianism and memorable compositions across a wide range of settings and stylistic contexts. The 105-minute performance, recorded on August 12, 1995 midway through the trio’s second European tour that summer, captures three virtuosos operating at alchemical levels of mutual intuition as they stretch out on eight of the ten selections (Barron interpolates two unaccompanied solos) before an enthusiastic audience at the 475-seat Brycheiniog Theatre. The up-tempos are graceful and vertiginous, the mid-tempos settle into mighty grooves, and Barron twice fulfills his stated aspiration “to play a ballad and make people cry.” “You’ve got to reach, whether you make it or not,” Barron told DownBeat in 2005, describing his speculative approach to improvisation. “Let’s see where it goes. Very interesting things can develop through that process.” The trio applies this mantra from the opening notes of “Oh, Look At Me Now,” Joe Bushkin’s 1940 vehicle for Frank Sinatra that Barron learned from Hank Jones on a 100 Golden Fingers tour two years earlier. Their sly, cohesive 11-minute treatment includes a passage of inventive piano-drum exchanges. The momentum carries through the final notes of a leisurely 16-minute stroll through “Canadian Sunset,” an Eddie Heywood hit from Barron’s early teens—later recorded by Gene Ammons with Tommy Flanagan, Barron’s formative piano influence—on which the trio explores its collective vocabulary in depth. “Time Was,” which Barron absorbed from John Coltrane’s 1957 recording with Red Garland, is a tour de force. Following a rubato introduction, Riley switches from brushes to sticks, launching Barron into nine minutes of ceaseless melodic invention as the intensity escalates seamlessly to what one long-time bandmate called his “warp speed from Star Wars gear.” Drummond moves effortlessly from impeccable bassline construction to lyrical soloing, then engages Riley in two minutes of incisive exchanges. Comparable fireworks illuminate “Surrey With the Fringe On Top,” which Barron knew from Ahmad Jamal’s 1952 trio version and Miles Davis’s 1956 response. After a chordal prologue and a trotting figure suggestive of the surrey’s departure, Barron releases the reins, building momentum chorus by chorus atop Riley’s buoyant ride cymbal. An exquisitely tender 13-minute rendition of “The Very Thought of You,” Ray Noble’s 1934 torch song, showcases Barron’s gift for narrative ballad playing. His ravishing opening statement and Drummond’s extended poetic response embody the lyric’s emotional essence. Drummond contributes another lyrical solo following Barron’s kaleidoscopic declamation on “Nikara’s Song,” a lilting tune named for his granddaughter that debuted on a 1993 album. The mood turns inward as Barron’ goes solo on his impressionistic, rubato ballad “Silent Rain,” deploying Tatumesque arpeggios while conveying the reflective ambiance suggested by the title. Freddie Hubbard’s modern jazz standard “Up Jumped Spring,” which Barron performed regularly as a member of Hubbard’s band from 1967 to 1970, receives a flowing, ebullient reading. Barron’s 12-minute interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s immortal “Ask Me Now” traces the song’s volcanic emotional arc, recalling Carmen McRae’s rendition of Jon Hendricks’ lyric. He addresses Monk’s saucier side with a bravura solo navigation of the angular “Shuffle Boil,” nailing its tricky bassline while tossing off a string of melody-centric choruses. Barron and Riley—Monk’s first-call drummer from 1962 to 1968—first played together in 1976 during a week at the Village Vanguard with Ron Carter’s piccolo bass quartet. Drummond was already among New York’s busiest bassists when he and Barron first collaborated as a piano-bass duo in July 1984 at Bradley’s, the storied Greenwich Village piano saloon that had booked Barron regularly since 1975. The trio-as-such debuted there over Labor Day weekend in 1989 following a long summer with Stan Getz, returning for a packed week before Christmas. Many more Bradley’s engagements followed, including two nights in April 1996 that yielded Live at Bradley’s and Live at Bradley’s Vol. 2: The Perfect Set, before the club closed later that year. “Even before I met Kenny, he was clearly one of THE pianists,” Drummond said in 2005. “He’ll attack any piano and make it sound like Kenny Barron. I’ve always admired his sense of harmony and melodic development—redeploying melody in complex ways. He’s so flexible and knowledgeable that he’s authentic in any style of the jazz universe.” “On a personal level, it was a great trio,” Barron says. “I can’t recall a sour moment. I loved the way Ray played—solid, with great time and personality. The way he and Ben grooved together was perfect. If this concert turned into something special, it happened organically. When momentum builds, it’s because of everyone’s contribution. It was a group effort.”