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|  | Dave Peck: Good Road by Jason West Part 1
| Extended intros and cadenzas, embellished harmonic signposts, hints of melodic foreshadowing, frenetic bursts of rhythmic energy, and pregnant moments of ballad magic drive Good Road to the edge of the proverbial cliff and blissfully over.
Seattle pianist and composer Dave Peck has released five trio recordings in the past seven years on his Let’s Play Stella record label: Trio (1998), The Piano (1999) and 3 and 1 (2000) featured Chuck Deardorf and Dean Hodges on bass and drums, respectively; Out of Seattle: Live at Jazz Alley (2002) introduced Jeff Johnson and Joe La Barbera as Peck’s most recent collaborators. This trio’s 2005 offering sticks to DP’s established game plan of interpreting standard jazz cartography in curiously original ways.
While Peck is in the driver’s seat, it would be a grave error to portray Johnson and La Barbera as simply dutiful role-players. Far from just a sideman, Johnson contributes half of the melodic and harmonic conversation on these eight tracks. His dexterous bass-- soloing or accompanying, thunderous or whispering, interrupting or harmonizing, always listening--is in constant communication with its 88-key companion. Like two kids in a Mark Twain story, their candor is refreshing.
If Peck plays Huck Finn to Johnson’s Tom Sawyer, then Joe La Barbera is the mighty Mississippi, rolling and swirling, propelling the trio downriver with cymbal and drum. La Barbera’s instinct for navigating time’s ubiquitous twists and turns proves, especially on the ballads, true as a compass needle.
The discerning listener who enjoys playing name that tune will be hard pressed upon hearing the overture to “Yesterdays” or “What Is This Thing Called Love”; each is a miniature composition in itself. Peck’s intro to the Jerome Kern piece is given a spacious, haunting, minor-chord feel over a straight eighth-note rhythm. Cole Porter’s rhetorical question begins, quite unexpectedly, under the veil of a drum solo slowly lifted to reveal a paired down harmony of dominant one and five chords.
“Low Key Lightly” and “The Star Crossed Lovers” are obscure Ellington ballads with remarkable backstories. The former can be heard on the soundtrack to Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder. Duke Ellington has a bit part in the flick, and after his scene we hear his song. The latter appears in Duke’s Shakespeare Suite. It’s a bittersweet romance which Peck performs elegantly, true to the Ellington original.
“Green Dolphin Street” and “Just in Time” transform the trio into high energy swingers: medium-up-tempo vigilantes with a license to kill. Their crazy rhythms light a fire that burns like a slug of whisky, with patches of melody and harmony for chaser. But the real barnburner is “What Is This Thing Called Love”; no wonder Peck’s infamous growl makes an appearance on this track. (His raspy alter ego is also audible on “Green Dolphin Street.”) | | ALLABOUTJAZZ |
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