The Toshiko Trio

WHAT NYMITH SAYS

On first listen, this was a major disappointment. Where was the fire? What happened to the energy, the speed, the gusto? What had those Berklee professors done to the poor girl?

So, let's be clear. This is not Toshiko's Piano part 2. This is not an attempt at making a carbon copy of her first album. Simply put, The Toshiko Trio presents Toshiko moving on to another style and mood. What happens when you reach a peak level of energy already on your debut? You can either continue to aim at the same mark, never to be surpassed and perhaps rarely to be equalled (I could mention punk rock right now, but mentioning punk rock in a jazz review, even in the same sentence as the word "jazz" makes my head spin a little) or you can close that chapter and move on to fresh territory. Toshiko chose the latter and went for artistic growth.

Toshiko's Piano was overwhelmed with hot numbers, played at the highest speeds Toshiko could go with very little room for tonal nuance. Energy reigned supreme and it was breathtaking. Unfortunately, it disappeared into the ether shortly after release. Her second recording, and first stateside, was "presented by George Wein" - an extremely important non-player in jazz history who was a promoter, producer and also FOUNDED THE NEWPORT JAZZ FESTIVAL. Best person in the world to take an interest in Toshiko then. For personnel, she had Ed Thigpen on drums (who would go on to work with Oscar Peterson) and the much in-demand Paul Chambers on double bass. I can't hear anything special about him myself but Thigpen adds dusky textures throughout and enhances the mood reliably.

These are piano pieces more than songs. Almost all of the material is self-penned and each piece is spare and mood-oriented. Toshiko chooses to emphasize tone and expression over rhythm. The Toshiko Trio is thus remarkably staid even without comparison to its predecessor - think of it as a classier answer to Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions, equally useful as background music to expensive dinners and formal gatherings, but with greater texture for those willing to lend an ear. The result is certainly elegant and nuanced and while it doesn't reach the heights of Toshiko's Piano and has no chance of hitting as close to my heart, it shows that she had a remarkable artistic adaptability. I look forward to discovering what following years contained, and would be very surprised if this turned out to be the end of her forward movement as an artist.

WHAT TICHARU SAYS

The pace of this album is slower and it's a bit more conventional, meaning there are more bass solos... were there any bass solos on the first record? I don't recall them if there were and I suppose that says quite a lot about what I think of bass solos. As long as Toshiko is letting her fingers fly around the keyboard and exploring rhythmic patterns that consistently remind me of King Crimson I'm quite happy listening to this. This record doesn't do that much. It's still a good record but I have a few issues. Sound quality is one. I would guess the master tapes are long gone, that's too bad, one track sounds like it was "remastered" from old vinyl. That's not really going to sound good even if I had the opportunity to be listening on new vinyl, fact is I'm listening over a computer. All the nuance of a stand-up bass, impossibly difficult to reproduce on a great system, is completely lost streaming at 128k... would I like bass solos better if I could hear the nuance? Maybe... would I want to hear more than one bass solo per album? Definitely not!