This is my kind of album. A top class piano, bass and drums trio playing a choice selection of standards - brilliantly.
That most of these tunes have been recorded in one form or another by just about every modern jazz legend poses the question as to why? It also poses another question - why not?
We live in an age where musicians don't learn their craft by listening and, eventually, sitting in with their peers and picking up wisdom that, back then, could only be learned, as Charlie Parker found out, in the School of Hard Knocks. Today they go to music colleges, academies and universities (providing their folks can afford it) and become neo-virtuosos on their instrument as well as acquiring the compositional skills of everyone from Scarlatti to whoever.
The end result is that when they crowdfund an album it is all their own compositions and, even if the compositions are twenty times better than anything Bill Evans ever wrote (unlikely), it's going to take a hard sell to reach a wider audience. One of the problems I have with original compositions is that 99% of the time you rarely hear them ever being played by anyone else other than the composer whereas standards give the listener a hook - "I preferred Oscar's version to Erroll's etc.".
Thomas Clausen's pedigree goes back to and beyond those glorious days of Danish jazz when he accompanied American greats such as Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin - you don't get that education in college and you learn first hand what not to do when off stage...
If you like jazz piano check it out - release date is Sept. 24 - Stunt Records .
Superb interpretations of standards - Lance
How Deep is the Ocean?; Walkin'; Nature Boy; Bloodcount; It Could Happen to You; Edelweiss; Invitation; Vem kan segia förutan; You Must Believe in Spring; You and I.
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