Ethan Iverson Quartet - Common Practice

The Guardian 80

(ECM)

Another live album by a jazz quartet playing Great American Songbook tunes? Er, well, up to a point. There are certainly eight vintage standards here, along with a bebop classic and two originals, but I wouldn’t recommend any of them as singalong material. With Ethan Iverson at the piano, any session is bound to be an excursion into the unknown, or at least the unexpected. He has the knack of making quite outrageous ideas seem perfectly logical. This time he is joined by veteran trumpeter Tom Harrell, whose soft, dry tone and sudden silences give a curiously brooding quality to much of his playing.

Both are at their best and most characteristic in Gershwin’s The Man I Love. The whole quartet, including bassist Ben Street and drummer Eric McPherson, shines in the Latin-flavoured Wee (derived from I Got Rhythm), and I love the decidedly contrary treatment of Sentimental Journey – Doris Day’s first hit, from 1945. If it weren’t for the occasional burst of applause, you’d never guess that this was recorded at a New York jazz club, the Village Vanguard. It has the clarity and ambient perfection of all ECM albums.