IMPORT CD – JT1906002 – The Brooklyn Sessions – Marko Churnchetz, Joris Teepe, Billy Hart

Notes

Brooklyn was gentrifying but still affordable during the ’90s, when another wave of Boomers and post-Boomers — Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Tim Berne, Craig Taborn, Robert Glasper, and Arturo O’Farrill among them — entered the mix. That wave also included bassist Joris Teepe, born in the Netherlands, now 56, who is the fulcrum of this kinetic, sophisticated, endlessly creative trio recital.

During those years, Teepe lived in the Windsor Terrace neighborhood, around the corner from Prospect Park, not far from the residence of drummer Billy Hart, 78, originally from Washington, D.C., who both propels and unifies the proceedings from the first note to the last with fresh, shamanistically intuitive ideas.
Some 15 years later, Teepe met the brilliant Slovenian pianist Marko Churnchetz, now 32, who would move to Brooklyn — Bushwick — in 2015 after several lengthy visits. He’s a story-teller, a consummate stylist, whose encyclopedic knowledge of the syntax of modern jazz piano vocabulary infuses his improvisations throughout.

THE BROOKLYN SESSIONS represents a fine selection of compositions. The album opens with “Full House” by Wes Montgomery. Billy Hart played in his band from 1966-1968. Other tunes are by Thelonious Monk, Cole Porter, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock and Jerome Kern, besides two originals by Teepe and Churnchetz, “Brooklyn” and “Just Play”.