US-based 28-year-old Israeli pianist Maestro is still best known for his work with bassist Avishai Cohen (in the same remarkable trio as Mark Guiliana) although that’s increasingly distant now as his own imprimatur as a player asserts itself.
The trio Maestro – with Peruvian bassist Jorge Roeder and Israeli dummer Ziv Ravitz – have put out two earlier albums since coming together four years ago. Recorded live and in the studio in New York and in Paris during 2014 this is mostly Maestro’s music with the opening track ‘Maya’s Song’, like a lullaby to begin, is a band collaboration.
Overall there’s that same sense of urgency retained from Cohen days and a tremendous authority stamped on proceedings from the outset. The trio bustles along, this no dreamy minimalist effort, all three players ready to joust among themselves and propel their energy on to the listener. That said there is room for tenderness and reverie say on the bittersweet ‘When You Stop Seeing’ a plea on one level for basic humanity in the perennial Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Maestro’s musical themes keep melody intact and band interplay high on the agenda the three instruments intersecting naturally allowing plenty of width in the playing.
In many ways a very contemporay trio, any notion of swing is largely absent for instance, yet there is a post-bop EST-like energy to it that runs in parallel and a metrical complexity that adds to a certain elasticity in the flow of the trio. I’d compare Maestro’s work here with the sound of Yaron Herman say or the Belgian pianist Jef Neve.
The dark moody parts of the album found on ‘Endless Winter’ above seem to give an extra air of gravitas to Maestro’s compositional method and this side of the album is really its best part. ‘Looking Back (Quiet Reflection)’ draws out the rhapsodic side of Maestro's personal vision and again the album thrives on this kind of energy partly built up by Ravitz’s heavy rock beat adding power and definition while Maestro navigates Mehldau-like journeys into the night. Easily one of the best piano trio albums of the year to date: Maestro goes from strength to strength.