The Boston Phoenix
January 1 - 8, 1998

[Music Reviews]

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*** Tommy Flanagan Trio

SEA CHANGES

(Evidence)

Pianist Tommy Flanagan's latest marks the 40th anniversary of his first album as a leader by reprising several of the tunes from that effort, along with a handful of standards with ocean themes. Although he's undoubtedly been through these tunes countless times, Flanagan never plays anything by rote, and this album is full of the elegant surprises and modest beauty one comes to expect from perhaps the greatest living jazz pianist. Flanagan never employs more notes than necessary, and he avoids overusing left-hand chords to support right-hand lines. His playing is marked by clarity and precision as well as emotional warmth and maturity. "Eclypso" features chorus after chorus of shapely melody paced to create rising and falling tensions. He takes "How Deep Is the Ocean?" at a perfectly judged medium tempo, knitting together chords, blues inflections, and bopish runs into a lively, varied solo. The delicate warmth and dark shadings of Flanagan's solo on "Delarma," an original ballad, make for one of the album's most intimate moments. Five minutes of Flanagan's unassuming virtuosity says more than an hour of flashy gestures from a lesser artist.

-- Ed Hazell
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