Mark Lewandowski Trio - Waller

The Guardian 80

(Whirlwind)

Back in 2009, Dave Brubeck, then 89, told the British pianist Liam Noble that the latter’s brilliant reinvention of his music was “an inspiration and a challenge for me to carry on”. Fats Waller, the effervescent 1930s stride-piano entertainer, might be less charitable about this whimsical tribute from a trio led by young UK bassist Mark Lewandowski and featuring Noble and drummer Paul Clarvis – but for quirky creativity it’s right in the same league. Occasional clips from old Waller recordings, free-improv probings, flat-out swing, glimpses of Thelonious Monk, and dark, spacey mood pieces come and go. Jitterbug Waltz opens softly before its silvery descents appear, tweaked by subtle dissonances; Ain’t Misbehavin is a dizzyingly audacious piano jam; the sleek Honeysuckle Rose is edited into explosive epithets answered by the languidly hip Clarvis’s brushwork; and Lewandowski’s vocal on Waller’s Why, delivered like a callow Chet Baker, leavens the eccentric mastery of this delightful session.