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Barry Green

Introducing Barry Green

Tentoten TTTCDS756

This album does exactly what it says on the tin: introduces listeners to the entire range (and it's considerable) of pianist Barry Green's talents.

He sets out his stall with a trio (completed by bassist Dave Whitford and drummer Seb Rochford) visit to a composer whose long lines and thoughtful approach to improvising have clearly been a major influence: Lennie Tristano ('Ablution'), and continues with a duo (with Whitford) take (reprised later on the album slightly more slowly) on Paul Motian's characteristically rubato piece 'Home'.

He examines a traditional piece, 'There's No Disappointment in Heaven', with Rochford, then whips through the bop anthem 'Anthropology' with singer Anita Wardell before blending beautifully with altoist Martin Speake ('I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face') and singer Christine Tobin ('I'm Gonna Laugh You Right Out of My Life' and a swooningly lovely version of John Lennon's 'In My Life').

He also interprets Monk's 'Four in One' and plays relatively freely with the wonderfully adventurous, multi-textured saxophones of Ingrid Laubrock. That Green possesses such wide-ranging interests will surprise no one who's caught him with the various bandleaders to whose groups he contributes his sparkling but cogent piano work (everyone from Larry Bartley and Ingrid Laubrock to Bobby Wellins and Julian ArgØelles).

What will register, though, is the sureness with which he addresses such a variety of jazz forms, from bop and straightahead to free improvisation. For a man just four years out of the Guildhall, such confidence is impressive, if typical of the current generation of UK twenty-somethings.