Eric Reed Groovewise Smoke Sessions ****
Recorded live over a couple of evenings at New York club Smoke, this solidly presented quartet record from the distinguished Thelonious Monk-influenced pianist Eric Reed, a big part of the Wyntonite world in the 1990s, joined here by the imaginative saxophonist Seamus Blake, Pat Metheny Unity Group bassist Ben Williams, and name drummer Gregory Hutchinson, begins with a Clifford Jordan composition, ‘Powerful Paul Robeson’, from Glass Bead Games an album Reed in the notes says has “this early 70s vibe, soul, and all of that. It was a significant record, especially during that period.”
Groovewise is mostly an album of Reed tunes (it’s not about ‘groove’ in the quasi-funk sense at all, more an unbuttoned connoisseur’s acoustic jazz sound), with Christian McBride’s best known composition ‘The Shade of the Cedar Tree’ the additional compositional input, Blake mining deep down to the very lowest regions of his instrument’s register. Reed pays tribute to “the cats”, referencing Mulgrew Miller on ‘The Gentle Giant’ and Marian McPartland on ‘Una Mujer Elegante.’
The sound quality is excellent, you actually forget, not that you necessarily need to, that it’s a live album as is the playing and overall conception. There’s nicely caught audience reaction, however, at the end of ‘Una Mujer Elegante’ so you can gauge the room ambient sound, and there’s clapping along even on the Bill Withers-channelling ‘Lean on Me’ intro to the title track. Next best thing listening to this to being there breathing the same air in this Harlem room that Reed comments is “musician-friendly and people friendly”. The modern mainstream piano tradition that used to be best exemplified by John Hicks and Mulgrew Miller is in very safe hands.
Stephen Graham