Brad Mehldau might well be otherwise occupied playing solo or touring with Mehliana, but both Jeff Ballard and Larry Grenadier, the other two thirds of Mehldau’s illustrious trio, have not let the grass grow under their feet. Yet they both have led separate lives before and since Mehldau “went electric” as anyone who knows both of their work in Fly with Mark Turner well appreciates (Grenadier incidentally is touring soon with Zhenya Strigalev.)
Ballard on Time’s Tales released by OKeh on 13 January is under his own steam as a leader fronting a supertrio that finds the 50-year-old Californian with guitarist Lionel Loueke, the Blue Note artist who appeared so effectively in late-2012 in trio mode with Mark Guiliana and Michael Olatuja; and Ballard is also here with the acclaimed alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón, whose latest album, a quartet release Oye!!! Live in Puerto Rico, came out in the States last year.
Time’s Tales features material as contrasting as an adaptation of the bebop-belovèd Béla Bartok on ‘Dal, a Rhythm Song’ based on the Hungarian composer’s 1931 composition ‘44 Duos for Two Violins’; and there's a welcome reminder of ‘Virgin Forest’ the title track of Loueke’s 2006 ObliqSound album; as well as the Konitz-esque ‘Western Wren (A Bird Call)’ with Ballard chopping up the rhythm like a surgeon. ‘The Man I Love’ also crops up, with Zenón all heart-on-sleeve on the classic Gershwin ballad. And yet the anarchic energy of a take on the Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘Hangin’ Tree’ from the rockers album Songs for the Deaf, rough the album up as well.
Lionel Loueke above left Jeff Ballard and Miguel Zenón. Photo: Andrea Boccalini