COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Epicure
PERFORMER: Kikoski (p); Essiet Essiet (b); Al Foster (d)
CATALOGUE NO: 478174-2 (distr. Sony Jazz UK)
The watershed for the jazz piano came in 1959 when Bill Evans introduced a wholly new rhythmic approach, loosening the driving, explicit ‘straight-ahead’ feel with the rhythmically more interactive style with greater prominence for bass and drums. While the ‘straight ahead’ approach still remains with us in the hands of safe young mainstreamers such as Benny Green, Stephen Scott and Jack Terrason, it is refreshing to hear a young musician who has developed and expanded Evans’s lessons in rhythmic variety into a wholly original style of his own.
Dave Kikoski demonstrates a wonderfully fluent melodic, harmonic and rhythmic approach. With a bassist and drummer attuned to his every move, he is a player that deserves the acclaim being showered on the more accessible offerings of the comfortable neo-classicists. Stuart Nicholson