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INTERPLAY
(Azica)
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Most of the standards on Stein’s new CD have been done to death — so why does the album sound so fresh? Interplay departs from his recent forays into the groove-based organ-trio format, to which he brought uncommon sophistication and an ear for detail and dynamics. That ear is still in evidence here, only more so. Working with a standard guitar trio, Stein forsakes the usual solos-with-accompaniment in favor of a three-way conversation. On the opener, his own "Eleanor’s Folly," Stein, bassist John Lockwood, and drummer Yoron Israel all tug at his attractive medium-tempo boppish theme, Lockwood shifting out of four-to-the-bar walking to spin melodies along with Stein, Israel creating polyrhythmic illusions over the steady pulse with his pattering brushes. You won’t hear more sensitive attention to texture and dynamics — did "quiet" playing ever swing so hard? On John Lewis’s "Django," Lockwood moves from bowed accompiment to a guitar-like duet with Stein — all before everyone moves into a hard 4/4 groove in the middle section. Israel feints and jabs with the beat throughout Toots Thieleman’s "Bluesette," at one point varying his attack with a series of measure-ending brushed-cymbal smashes that only reinforce the tension-releasing shifts from 4/4 to 3/4. And so on, through Gordon Jenkins’s "Goodbye," Jimmy Van Heusen’s "Darn That Dream" and "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," and Nat Simon’s "Poinciana." You’ve heard them all — but not like this.
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