(Post-Bop, Avant-Garde Jazz) Kenny Werner - Balloons: Live at the Blue Note - 2011, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 1 from 15. November 2010
EAC extraction logfile from 16. March 2011, 21:39
Kenny Werner / Balloons
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==== Log checksum 24FFD94117481A3D9EF6980D3BB2903F129F60754B647A35178C7017CB21DAE1 ====

REM GENRE Jazz
REM DATE 2011
REM DISCID 2D0C9604
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v1.0b1"
PERFORMER "Kenny Werner"
TITLE "Balloons: Live at the Blue Note"
FILE "01 - Sada.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Sada"
    PERFORMER "Kenny Werner"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "02 - Siena.wav" WAVE
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    TITLE "Siena"
    PERFORMER "Kenny Werner"
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FILE "03 - Balloons.wav" WAVE
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    TITLE "Balloons"
    PERFORMER "Kenny Werner"
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FILE "04 - Class Dismissed.wav" WAVE
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    TITLE "Class Dismissed"
    PERFORMER "Kenny Werner"
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As a composer, pianist Kenny Werner's reach is vast: it encompasses not only the jazz heritage, but also the classical and folk traditions, Western and Eastern. Balloons is compiled from two nights of quintet performances at the Blue Note in April of 2010 with trumpeter Randy Brecker, saxophonist David Sanchez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Antonio Sanchez. These four long pieces reveal new traits in Werner's compositional thinking and present complex, harmonic notions accessibly. Simultaneously, this group makes the most of improvisational opportunities presented by their combined dynamic and tonal possibilities. "Sada" opens with a lilting, graceful melody, articulated by long, languid tones from Brecker and David Sanchez. Werner plays a series of comped notes as a constant, restrained drone is underscored by bass and drums. Even in his fine solo, he stays within a limited palette, both highlighting the melody and creating sense of space and color that is further enhanced by David Sanchez's solo later on. "Siene" showcases the entire frontline on a bossa-tinged groove. Brecker is illustrative and bright; David Sanchez more forceful and edgy; Werner holds them together assertively as he comps, then, inspired by their playing, finds a stellar bop improvisation in his solo. The title track is a seeming child's lullaby in the singsongy melody that is articulated in a long, hypnotic piano solo intro atop a pulsing, hypnotic, two-chord pattern. When the band enters, they add air and light, opening the tune up without sacrificing its childlike notion of song. The melody expands as Brecker and David Sanchez play rounded warm expressions of it before their solos come into play. The album's final track, "Class Dismissed," is ebullient from the start with Antonio Sanchez's drums playing in an aggressive stop-start time as piano, trumpet, and saxophone dig deeply into a very knotty, hard-swinging lyric. Patitucci's fluidity and force bridge the players, even when the horns enter into contrapuntal discussions. Werner's piano frames that energy and makes it sing. The drum solo is an exercise in Afro-Cuban, post-bop lyricism in and of itself. Balloons is, at its heart, yet another expression of Werner's compositional, instrumental, and leadership gifts; but it is also a document of a group communicating so intuitively, that it sounds like they've been together for decades.

Times sure have been tough for pianist Kenny Werner, and yet, he seems to be turning tragedy into triumph, mining the depths of emotion caused by the accidental death of his daughter, Katheryn, in 2006. While he's been playing in the years since, he was noticeably quiet on the recording front until No Beginning, No End (Half Note), released just a short six months ago, in October, 2010. A sweeping, career-defining recording that earned the pianist/composer a Guggenheim Fellowship Award, it dealt with the heart-wrenching process of grief, redemption and hope, its raw catharsis engendering Werner's most ambitious recording to date, with the pianist enlisting a large ensemble of woodwinds, voices and strings. Balloons returns to a more intimate setting, the quintet that Werner has been touring with the last couple years, including a tremendous performance at the 2009 Montreal Jazz Festival, though this live recording, from a two-night run at New York City's The Blue Note, finds one veteran bassist, John Patitucci, replacing another, Scott Colley, from the Montreal show a year earlier.
Lawn Chair Society (Blue Note, 2007) was a more eclectic set, with Werner exploring the possibilities of integrating technology into the improvisational process. While it also featured a consistent (albeit completely different) group of players throughout, the inherent cohesion of a live recording gives Balloons greater focus—and greater energy, not unlike the earlier, also-live Democracy (Half Note, 2006). Four long songs—three in the 12- minute range, one approaching 18—and "songs" is, indeed, the operative word: while there is plenty of space for effortless and effervescent soloing from everyone, the lyrical nature of Werner's writing encourages his band mates to remain focused on melody, eschewing the "head-solo-head" tradition for something more expansive, more cinematic.
Werner's been using this same frontline of trumpeter Randy Brecker and David Sanchez for a couple years now, and it shows in the duo's ability to coalesce into a near- single voice for the theme of the poignant opener, "Sada," layered over simple descending and ascending pattern, where their lines shift, almost imperceptibly, between unison and harmony, leading to a solo from Werner that perfectly demonstrates the pianist's long-revered approach to the creative process, Effortless Mastery (Jamey Aebersold, 1996). It's clear his band mates subscribe to a similar aesthetic, as Sanchez deliver a solo that, bolstered by Patitucci and drummer Antonio Sanchez, builds to a passionate peak and, after a recapitulation of the theme, goes out on a vamp where Brecker's vocal tone is more about color than melody.
Brecker gets his chance to solo at length on the brighter "Siena," and while his range, accuracy and control of timbre are underlying qualities, it's his similarly thematic approach that makes it one of the set's many highlights, propelled by drummer Sanchez's always marvelous ability to create turbulent underpinnings that still facilely hang onto the propulsive groove.
Live performances are often about being in a moment that, once over, is gone forever, but with Balloons, Werner has managed to capture that moment, and hold onto it in a way that will remains fresh—and filled with surprise—for years to come.

Kenny Werner - piano
Randy Brecker - trumpet
David Sanchez - tenor saxophone
John Patitucci - bass
Antonio Sanchez - drums
Recorded live at The Blue Note, New York on April 17-18, 2010.