A collection of jazz standards performed with a modern approach to free playing, updating these essential melodies for the 21st century while adhering to their original warmth, from drummer Tom Rainey's exceptional New York Obligatto band of Ingrid Laubrock on saxophones, Ralph Alessi on trumpet, Drew Gress on bass, and Jacob Sacks on piano.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2021 Country: Switzerland Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels Recorded at Jazz Club Hannover, October 15th, 2018, by NDR.
"With Untucked in Hannover, Tom Rainey's top-notch quintet Obbligato presents a third album of a collection of jazz standards - with Jacob Sacks on piano replacing regular pianist Kris Davis for this live recording. Wonderful jazz tunes like "Stella by Starlight" or "I Fall in Love Too Easily" are interpreted in an open dialogue with stunning joy of playing and improvisation. And though standards are the modus operandi of Obbligato, their approach is intended to be less conventional, less reverential and certainly less solo-centric than many other bands that tackles with Standards. Obbligato sometimes plays with the essences of famous jazz standards in an implied way, sometimes in a teasing and mysterious way, but always in a tantalizing way.
"Close your eyes, imagine sitting in the front row of your favorite jazz club, sit back and enjoy Obbligato playing pieces from the Great American Songbook in a way you've never heard them before: and by one of the most inventive and inspiring live bands of the last decade," writes Laurence Donohue-Greene, liner notes
"Tom Rainey Obbligato is drummer Rainey's jazz standards group. Untucked In Hannover is the first live album of a triptych. It follows Obbligato (2014) and Float Upstream (2017), both on Intakt Records. Great American Songbook tunes hammered and bent and stretched away from expectations into new shapes is the name of the game, an approach which runs parallel to that of Lee Konitz, especially the alto saxophonist's late career outings, including Live At the Blue Note (Half Note, 2012) and Standards Live: At the Village Vanguard (Enja, 2014).
With Rainey, a "standard approach" may seem outside of his wheelhouse; he is known for his work in the freer side of jazz, in collaboration with saxophonists Tim Berne and Tony Malaby, and Ingrid Laubrock, who is the saxophonist in Obbligato. And hearing him shift from the searing intensity of Berne's Big Satan group to a more melodious form of expression in his Obbligato is a tip of the hat to a respect for the tradition, even as he and his quintet grab that tradition by the lapels to give it a good shake.
Trumpeter Ralph Alessi and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock are the front line-though nobody seems positioned "out front" here. The ever versatile Drew Gress (an inside/outside, whatever-the-situation-calls-for guy) plays bass, and Jacob Sacks sits in on piano, replacing Kris Davis, who played on the earlier Obbligato sets."-Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz