Tobin Mueller is a jazz band leader, Broadway playwright, prog rocker, composer and arranger, genre-hopper and player of everything from easy listening to complex progressive creations, revisor of stalwart standards and forward-thinking creator. But I always think of him first and foremost as a jazz pianist, expressing feelings and capturing emotions, telling sonic stories and taking music to both elegant and eloquent heights.
This collection of old and new tracks opens up with Ghostly Bells, a flowing, floating, satisfying piece whose birthing tells you much about Mueller’s modus operandi. Initially taken from his New England Suite, which sees him explore the music and influence of J.S. Bach, this charming and chiming piece demonstrates his ability to blend musical worlds. Indeed, one of the joys of the recording is hearing 300-year-old classic motifs emerge from more modern modal jazz complexities.
Mueller and Schneider blend their sounds perfectly on One Body of Man, merging, melding and matching, contrasting and colliding, always interesting, always smoothly delivered as the performance transforms from simple R&B to more expected jazz ornateness. Full of the power and bond of great musicianship. They truly become one body while playing.
And, while One Body of Man blends, perhaps more expected, styles, an unexpected step into more Latin climes is found on Two Peas In A Chili Pod. A song seemingly built of interlocking grooves and musical motifs, eclectic rhythms and cascading melodies, all garnered from two hands and one piano. It’s a classic example of letting passion explode onto the keys in a wild flourish finish. Music to both dance and cook to.
Slow Dance shows him in his more understated mood, as the name suggests, a gentle piece describing perhaps the last two dancers on an empty ballroom floor, swaying, gliding, living and indeed in love with the moment. Under A Western Sky sees Mueller synthesizing the essence of Aaron Copland in simple cascades of virtuosic piano lines, spacious and exhilarating.
And, of course, the world of Tobin Mueller isn’t just about music; there is always a lot more going on underneath the strike of the piano notes, always an idea, emotion or concept being built or captured in the music. Birth Joy, for example, reflects the world of Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” as a celebration of life and family. Between Space and Chaos brings together influences from diverse masters Igor Stravinsky, Duke Ellington, and Keith Emerson with author Jeanette Winterson in a piece that aims to reflect the often profound and philosophical nature of the latter’s writings; like many of these pieces, it becomes much more than a piece of music.
This first volume ends with a new piece, A Prayer for Keith Jarrett, an understated and delicate, seductive and sentimental homage to one of Mueller’s idols, the perfect way to sign off and the perfect way to leave the listener craving the arrival of the companion volume to this gorgeous and adventurous music collection.
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[…] But Tobin Mueller comes from a world where interpretation of other people’s music is a cornerstone skill, a world of jazz and blues, a place full rife with reimagination and reworking, of tribute to and celebration of what has gone before. In that world, there is an understanding that a song’s story never ends, that even the best-known version of a song, its shape, sound and style, is just what happened to be recorded on the day. There is always room for further evolution and experimentation. […]
[…] find A Prayer for Those Who Come After, a companion piece to A Prayer for Keith Jarrett that graced Volume 1 and again a deft blend of complimentary and contradictory sounds, perhaps reflecting the complex […]