Carrothers, Bill

Joy Spring

Label: Pirouet Country: Germany

"Carrother's CD Joy Spring is a jazz adventure, sensitive and thrilling, soulful and surprising. The trio takes a new look into each piece, and in the process comes up with totally organic forms. It is a highly individualistic reflection of a very unique magic. With his subtle personal sound, Bill Carrothers takes a bow to the one-time hard-bop trumpet sensation Clifford Brown. The CD is Joy Spring, named after on of Brown's most famous compositions. And with a wink and a nod, this title is misleading; the recording has nothing to do with the joyful, naïve over-tones of an exciting legacy- just as little as it has to do with a remorseful lament for a past master. Rather, it is a highly individual relection. Carrothers' involvement with Clifford Brown's music has many facets. Carrothers' partners are bassist Drew Gress and drummer Bill Stewart."-Piouret

"Pianist Bill Carrothers has narrowed his often expansive focus. Where the marvelous and career-defining Armistice 1918 (Sketch Records, 2004) concerned itself with the scope of World War I, and I Love Paris (Pirouet Records, 2005) explored popular songs from the twenties through the forties, Joy Spring zeros in on a smaller slice of a more recent history: the music of died-too-young hard bop trumpeter Clifford Brown.

Brown (b.1930, d. 1956), was a young phenom who enjoyed only a four-year recording career in the early to mid-fifties, but he was one of bebop's pioneers, putting out a remarkable number of albums in his brief moment in the spotlight, by today's standards. Teamed with drummer Max Roach and pianist Richie Powell (Bud Powell's brother) in the Clifford Brown & Max Roach Quintet, he waxed numerous classic cuts that are now considered bop standards. On Joy Spring Carrothers covers and/or reinvents-and always puts his off-kilter personal touch on-a dozen of these gems.

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This is a masterfully sequenced album. The up-tempo "Jacqui" leads into another barn-burner, "Gerkin for Perkin," followed by the loveliest imaginable, Carrothers-esque ballad take on Victor Young's "Delilah." Then there's the drifting tempo of "Gertrude's Bounce," featuring the leader's delicate touch and Stewart's shuffling drums. Duke Jordan's "Jordu" struts out with a metronomic march rhythm, with Carrother's playing flashy and bright, leaning in a ragtime direction. "Daahoud" sizzles along, and "Time," opening on a lugubrious bass solo, injects a late night, sitting-all-alone with a drink mood.

"I Remember Clifford," Benny Golson's wistful tribute to "Brownie," is slowed to a gorgeous crawl and closes this standout set, one that should lift the profile of the idiosyncratically original Carrothers up where it belongs, into the top echelon of today's jazz pianists."-Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz