Come shine, with George Mraz and Al Foster
Tracklisting
Click on the titles to listen to a 30sec. excerpt- Zig Zag (Rocheman)
- Just in time (Styne)
- My funny Valentine (Rodgers)
- New waltz (Rocheman)
- Bonnie Rose (Foster)
- Come rain or come shine (Arlen)
- I fall in love too easily (Styne)
- Picturesque (Mraz)
- Woody n' you (Gillespie)
- Au privave (Parker)
Introduction
It is not because you buy a Ferrari that you necessarily have the talent to drive it well. The extraordinary impression of comfort, of contained power and perfect command that we get while listening to « Come Shine », Manuel Rocheman’s fourth CD, indicates the high level of achievement that this pianist has reached.
He did not choose his two companions for a one-off hit, just to attract the punters with a snazzy line-up. Many have burnt their wings trying to fly higher than their know-how allows them to. Manuel quite simply chose two partners at his level, who strive with him to transcend their superb professionalism to play the trio adventure at the height of its fusion and interdependence, rigour and freedom, each blazing the personality trail and yet being generous with the two others. May we point out that Mraz, going beyond his extraordinary virtuosity, has already shown a thousand times that he knows how to draw the best out of other great pianists, from Oscar Peterson to Tommy Flanagan and Jimmy Rowles. As for Foster, in the same context, he has without fail proved to be gifted with a rare sensitivity, whereas with Miles Davis in the 1980’s, he was to be heard setting off thunderstorms.
Manuel, thus solidly backed, and shored up by his vast piano and jazz culture, lets us hear and know in the wink of an eye that he has managed to free himself from the stamp of his first master, Solal, and elders of whose talents he has managed to capture the best, I’m thinking of the likes of Peterson and of Phineas Newborn Jr. With his nimble fingers and a profusion of clear ideas, he gives us music as fresh as spring water, that does not stop swinging for a second, romantic when the moment is right, but never sloppy, intelligent but always legible, terribly demanding but always seductive.
In his repertory, several good standards, without a trace of cliché, including an amazing Just In Time of which the theme is not stated until nearly at the end, and in original scores from each side of the triangle. Manuel’s two compositions make for smooth listening with a perfectly natural flow, despite their formal complexity with bars that alternate between duple and triple time in Zig Zag. From the first to the last note, this very beautiful CD bears witness to the delightful maturity of three artists who are now to be considered heavyweights.
Claude Carrière.
"These are eleven themes (compositions sprinkled with standards) taken
on four-square, with honesty, strength, clarity and personal feeling
which impress."
Francis Marmande - Le Monde
Press
- Interviews for the Amiens festival (in english) and the Jazzman magazine (in French)
- Review in L'Humanité (in French)