Joe Gilman Trio, Time Again: Brubeck Revisited, Vol One

Label: Sunnyside
Year: 2003
Released on LP: No
Released on CD: Yes

Tracks

1. Blue Rondo a la Turk
2. Weep No More
3. Tender Woman
4. For Iola
5. In Your Own Sweet Way
6. Theme for June
7. Recuerdo
8. Love and Anger
9. Darius
10. Curtain Time

Notes

Musicians

Joe Gilman (piano), Joe Sanders (bass), Justin Brown (drums).

Joe Gilman and Bubeck Institute graduates, Joe Sanders and Justin Brown, play a variety of Dave Brubeck compositions.

Reviews

Review in All About Jazz Italia

Reviewed by Luigi Santosuosso & Claudio Casanova
May 8, 2009

Brubeck Revisited Volume 1

The recent publication in obtaining the CD of Stevie Wonder compositions, "View So Tender" by the Joe Gilman Trio, provides an opportunity to talk about their first CD: Time Again: Brubeck Revisited. Volume One, then followed by Vol 2, according to a logic of charges developed on two CDs, confirmed by a compact disc dedicated to Wonder.

Pianist Joe Gilman is the stable pianist of Bobby Hutcherson and boasts many collaborations of a similar level. The commitment in teaching Brubeck Institute has reduced his exposure to the public, but rewarded precious opportunities for growth for him and his students, like Joe Sanders and Justin Brown, now his peer companions.

"Brubeck Revisited" is complete in form and comparison with the work of the Dave Brubeck Trio and shows a mature, strong, and original identity. Most of these compositions have not entered the jazz canon, with very few exceptions, because of their extraordinary complexity. The thought of moving about the Brubeck harmonic strata and rhythmic fusions of blues and classical music require careful study, high technical skills, and depth of thought. The greater difficulty lies perhaps in bringing about the sense of swing with these subjects, within structures of the most elaborate known in jazz.

Gilman had the privilege to get all the original scores of Brubeck: he must have them to find ways appropriate to the personal character of his trio.
This reading may seem unlikely to work. Apparently are a few songs that tolerate deviations from the original text. Actually it is the same recent Brubeck discography that demonstrates how these texts can sound new and current harmonics by inserting scraps, updates to rhythmic and timbral innovations. We saw this in person when he played in 2003 at the Parco della Musica and that is what is in his way Gilman does with very high results.

In choosing the repertoire for this Vol.1 (even more in Vol 2) he avoided the beaten tracks, with the sole exception of "Blue Rondo a la Turk" and "In Your Own Sweet Way." The rest of the lineup offers delightful discoveries in a catalog that is waiting for the right critical study to accompany the ongoing public success. It's a walk through immediate and singable melodies, chord progressions embedded in the original and, above all, long articulated rhythmic complexities almost impossible to think and perform, but done very natural.

Gilman understood not only the scores of Brubeck, but also and especially the deep mechanisms, so he found the best strategies for this tribute, where the insertion, in the baroque "Blue Rondo a la Turk," the rhythms of funk, rhythmic breakdowns almost free and post-modal solo outbursts, not out of place, and allows us to look at the masterpieces of Brubeck from a point of view and highlight.

Among the most moving moments of note are the solo "In You Own Sweet Way," a business card that Gilman should put in the focus of all lovers of piano jazz. Then the hypnotic "Recuerdo," built on a deep ostinato that was the backdrop to the improvisations of the drums and open to negotiate on a sequence of sentences stemming from the vaguely baroque. The trio of Gilman expresses the serenity and tenderness "For Iola" (Brubeck's tribute to his wife) and makes the abstract and contemporary taste of ambivalence "Love and Anger. "
The teaching of Darius Milhaud is known as one of the formative stages of essential Brubeck, who cleverly wrote "Darius" in a jazz style, avoiding an obvious homage to the style of the master.

Completed listening to Time Again: Brubeck Revisited, is pleased to have found a little-known repertoire of extraordinary value, performed by a trio on his debut was already at the summit of its kind.


Review by Harvey Siders

Idolatry can be a career-changing catalyst-if you choose the right idol. For Dr. Joe Gilman, a Sacramento native, professor of music at American River College and director of the Capital Jazz Project, that choice is an epiphany: Dave Brubeck and his 1959 career-defining recording Time Out, with "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk."

Fast forward to Gilman's latest release, Time Again: Brubeck Revisited (Sunnyside). That was the culmination of many events: Gilman playing Brubeck's music at a Brubeck festival; teaching Dave's music at the Brubeck Institute; and, inevitably, word getting back to Brubeck himself, who responded by sending Gilman all his published music to share with the students. The next logical step for Gilman: record what he had internalized. With bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Justin Brown, Gilman is able to bring a more boppish, more incisive approach to Brubeck standards. Not better-just different. Bottom line: Brubeck says he digs the "trio's imaginative interpretations" on this CD.