The New York trio of pianist Jerome Kitzke, bassist Steve Rust on electric and acoustic, and drummer/percussionist Harvey Sorgen, alternate consummately clever approaches to collective playing with Kitzke's humorously ironic and insightful reading of four poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti from his book "A Coney Island of the Mind", in honor of his 100th birthday.
Label: Not Two Catalog ID: MW989-2 Squidco Product Code: 28031
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2019 Country: Poland Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at Area 52 Studios, in Saugerties, New York, in September, 2018, by Dave Cook.
"[...] American trio Big Tent, with pianist/vocalist Jerome Kitzke, bassist Steve Rust and percussionist Harvey Sorgen add poems by Beat forefather Lawrence Ferlinghetti among the trio's advanced improvisations on I Am Waiting. Kitzkie's low key, tongue-in-check recitation makes clear the contemporary relevance of this sardonic mid-20th Century verse. For instance the exaggerations turned on their head in "I Am Waiting" 'for the rebirth of wonder' including Elvis Presley and Billy Graham changing places, are underlined with swelling bass string pumps and alternating splashing or tinkling piano chords. Meanwhile a Bop fable about Christ, "Sometime during Eternity", uses banjo-like twanging to signal Jesus as "real dead" and stentorian plucks to contrast his teaching with the subsequent ignoring of it by his so-called followers. Without words the trio's improvising is also nuanced. Facing kinetic drum rolls and piano string strums on "Trio in a Bottle", Rust constructs a sequence that vibrates from the bass's scroll to its spike. Kitzke bends tones and patterns in the kinetic exposition that is "Blues Ahead", harmonized with the bassist's stylized pings. Meanwhile ground bass lines and mid-range keyboard swing on "Sweet for the Eternal Spring" give Sorgen space to boisterously roll out sprays of percussion power, advancing the theme rhythmically and finally calming it with paradiddles."-Ken Waxman, JazzWord