Ecm Records
2004
The Out-Of-Towners (Live)
About This Album
Recorded in 2001 live at the State Opera House in Munich, Out of Towners features the Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette trio in the kind of performance we've come to expect from them these last 21 years: Stellar. Being one of contemporary jazz's longest-running bands has its advantages; one of them is having nothing to prove. First and foremost, this band plays standards like no one else. Given their individual careers, the members playing in a trio that performs classics carries a kind of freedom, as well as weight. This material is treated not as museum-piece jazz, but as the essence of song. Check the whispered elegance of "I Can't Believe You're in Love With Me." This Jimmy McHugh-Clarence Gaskill number has plenty of history being recorded definitively by singers, chronologically by Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra. The trio lean into the lyric phrasing in the body of the tune and turn it gently inside out without ever losing its melodic essence. They follow it with "You've Changed," a fine exercise in rhythmic invention with a popping, sure-footed swing throughout. The complete re-vamp of Cole Porter's "I Love You" that unfolds over ten minutes digs into the lyric underbelly of the song and brings out so many subtle and shaded nuances it's like hearing the composition for the first time.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3 and 5)

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