SHAI MAESTRO - The Dream Thief
ECM 677 1112
Shai Maestro: piano; Jorge Roeder: double bass; Ofri Nehemya: drums
Recorded April 2018 by Manfred Eicher at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in Lugano
On the evidence of this set (Maestro’s fifth outing as a leader and his first with ECM), you can hear an elegant, gentle piano that has a sense of connecting many continents. Each tune mixes tones, rhythms and harmonies from Europe, America, and the Middle East (while also hinting at rhythms from North and South Africa and the Far East). This suggests a musician who is completely immersed in music as a world art-form. It is so difficult to pinpoint the geographic centre of the phrases, which shift almost across each bar in the tunes, that you end up being beguiled and seduced by the complexity of the music even as it washes over you in seemingly simple phrases. No wonder that ECM have signed Maestro and no wonder that his reputation has grown so steadily over the past few years.
As with every artist who is set to shake the world around them (as Maestro surely is), there is a nice back story that serves as the basis for the myth of that particular artist. By myth, I mean story of heroic struggle rather than any contemporary form of the word. Maestro, from the age of 5, learned classical piano in Israel, graduating from a performing arts high school and then winning a National Jazz competition before going to the summer performance programme of Berklee College. He was awarded a full scholarship to Berklee – and you can see this as a logical conclusion of his musical development – which he declined – and here the myth takes a new turn. Within a few weeks, Maestro is called by Avishai Cohen to join his trio. So, the young pianist cuts his teeth recording and touring with one of the most significant bass players on the contemporary scene. Where do you go from there? Well, you form your own trio, and begin a gruelling cycle of recording and touring. So, when you reach the jazz label that is absolutely the pinnacle of the style of music you make, it feels inevitable that Manfred Eicher manages the recording session and you produce an intensely rich, sublime recording.
There are several standout performances in this set, including the gently undulating ‘Lifeline’ (track 5) or the title track ‘The Dream Thief’ (track 3), but I found ‘These Foolish Things’ (track 8) to be the best illustration of Maestro’s way with a tune. The trio takes Eric Maschwitz and Jack Strachey’s well-known song, that has been a Jazz Standard from the day they wrote it in 1936, and create something unfamiliar. The piece begins with an impromptu piano part that extemporizes the chords with completely unfamiliar thematic sequences before resolving, over the course of 4 short minutes, into sequences of notes that interpret the lyrics and shift back and forward from the melody in a way that it is jaw-droppingly beautiful. As if the trio music wasn’t sufficiently compelling, the CD closes with ‘What else needs to happen’, which mixes the words of Barack Obama, following the horrendous shooting at Columbine that killed 12 children and 1 teacher in 1999 (and, in Obama’s words, ‘by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago everyday’). Around Obama's words, the trio deliver a chilling yet apposite response that simply reflects the tune's title.
On this set, the trio has a strong sense of camaraderie, and each tune delivers a feeling that these are players with absolute trust in each other’s musical ability and willingness to support each other. But throughout this set, what grabs the listener’s attention are the ways in which Maestro coaxes a totally lyrical response from his piano so that the logic of each note that he plays is total and perfect. To be honest, I find it difficult to name a pianist who’s playing has such absolute coherence while calling on so many musical references.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
ECM 677 1112
Shai Maestro: piano; Jorge Roeder: double bass; Ofri Nehemya: drums
Recorded April 2018 by Manfred Eicher at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in Lugano
On the evidence of this set (Maestro’s fifth outing as a leader and his first with ECM), you can hear an elegant, gentle piano that has a sense of connecting many continents. Each tune mixes tones, rhythms and harmonies from Europe, America, and the Middle East (while also hinting at rhythms from North and South Africa and the Far East). This suggests a musician who is completely immersed in music as a world art-form. It is so difficult to pinpoint the geographic centre of the phrases, which shift almost across each bar in the tunes, that you end up being beguiled and seduced by the complexity of the music even as it washes over you in seemingly simple phrases. No wonder that ECM have signed Maestro and no wonder that his reputation has grown so steadily over the past few years.
As with every artist who is set to shake the world around them (as Maestro surely is), there is a nice back story that serves as the basis for the myth of that particular artist. By myth, I mean story of heroic struggle rather than any contemporary form of the word. Maestro, from the age of 5, learned classical piano in Israel, graduating from a performing arts high school and then winning a National Jazz competition before going to the summer performance programme of Berklee College. He was awarded a full scholarship to Berklee – and you can see this as a logical conclusion of his musical development – which he declined – and here the myth takes a new turn. Within a few weeks, Maestro is called by Avishai Cohen to join his trio. So, the young pianist cuts his teeth recording and touring with one of the most significant bass players on the contemporary scene. Where do you go from there? Well, you form your own trio, and begin a gruelling cycle of recording and touring. So, when you reach the jazz label that is absolutely the pinnacle of the style of music you make, it feels inevitable that Manfred Eicher manages the recording session and you produce an intensely rich, sublime recording.
There are several standout performances in this set, including the gently undulating ‘Lifeline’ (track 5) or the title track ‘The Dream Thief’ (track 3), but I found ‘These Foolish Things’ (track 8) to be the best illustration of Maestro’s way with a tune. The trio takes Eric Maschwitz and Jack Strachey’s well-known song, that has been a Jazz Standard from the day they wrote it in 1936, and create something unfamiliar. The piece begins with an impromptu piano part that extemporizes the chords with completely unfamiliar thematic sequences before resolving, over the course of 4 short minutes, into sequences of notes that interpret the lyrics and shift back and forward from the melody in a way that it is jaw-droppingly beautiful. As if the trio music wasn’t sufficiently compelling, the CD closes with ‘What else needs to happen’, which mixes the words of Barack Obama, following the horrendous shooting at Columbine that killed 12 children and 1 teacher in 1999 (and, in Obama’s words, ‘by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago everyday’). Around Obama's words, the trio deliver a chilling yet apposite response that simply reflects the tune's title.
On this set, the trio has a strong sense of camaraderie, and each tune delivers a feeling that these are players with absolute trust in each other’s musical ability and willingness to support each other. But throughout this set, what grabs the listener’s attention are the ways in which Maestro coaxes a totally lyrical response from his piano so that the logic of each note that he plays is total and perfect. To be honest, I find it difficult to name a pianist who’s playing has such absolute coherence while calling on so many musical references.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
