Rising star pianist Noah Haidu releases a quartet album called Standards 40 years after the famed trio of Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette released their first album of the same name, but you don’t need to know that to immediately fall in love with this date. In a trio format (with sax on a few tracks), Haidu deftly explores a double handful of durable swinging bops and ballads. This is straight ahead hard bop and post bop at its best. It’s a compact collection of standards of varying levels of popularity, with a couple of originals tossed in. Featured with Haidu are Buster Williams and Peter Washington rotating in the bass slot, with Lewis Nash behind the kit and Steve Wilson guesting on saxophone on some tracks.
Some of these tunes are quite well known, and by that I mean I recognize them! I don’t know how much more standard you can get than “Someday My Prince Will Come,” which has been turned into a jazz standard by the likes of Brubeck, Davis, and Evans. I went right to this one, the fifth track, because I love especially what Davis did with it. Haidu’s trio plays it as a straight and tender ballad, Haidu carrying the melody on his deft right hand and a very expressive voice with the left; Washington takes a short solo, and Nash’s brushes are nicely expressive too. It’s a good breather before the trio with Buster Williams on bass plus Wilson on sax launch into a very peppy take on “You And The Night And The Music.” I know this one mostly from Bill Evans’s generally more sedate versions but it’s one of those true standards from a ’30s musical that everyone has done. This one kicks it and everyone gets a chance to demo their chops, including Nash who gets the lead-out. Haidu lets loose some impressive runs.
Next I turned to “Skylark,” which I first knew from Linda Ronstadt and Nelson Riddle. Haidu takes this one solo with a long intro and a delicate statement of the melody plus a nice solo that doesn’t stray too far from the tune, just lovely.
One of the things I love about having today’s jazz artists play standards is that there are a lot of those old songs that I don’t know. One of those is the next track following “Skylark,” the legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s “Ana Maria.” Shorter named it for his wife, who later was one of the victims of the crash of TWA Flight 800 (along with their niece Dalila), so even though it’s not by any means a sad sounding ballad it has become something of a reflection on love and loss. I’d think it’s a challenge for any sax player, one that Wilson handles well. Haidu’s left hand chording during his solo section give it an introspective feel, which I don’t know is present in the original, and Wilson drops the melody down a few steps on the final chorus. A highlight of the disc that prompts me to seek out other versions.
“With the loss of Ana Maria, Dalila and of Wayne himself, this song now embodies the narrative of loss in so many ways,” says Haidu.
It’s not all love and loss, though. There’s the tender love song popularized by Frank Sinatra “All The Way,” Nat “King” Cole’s swinging “Beautiful Friendship” on which bassist Williams really shines, the equally brisk “Just In Time,” another one that everybody has done, including Tony Bennett right up until the night he retired. The main program bookends are the delightful “Old Folks” and the very cool “I Thought About You” by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Mercer.
They wrap it up with the only originals, Haidu’s “Last Dance I” an intro of sorts to “Last Dance II,” which brings back Wilson on soprano this time for a more modern sounding but still classic feeling waltz. Nash really shines on the whole track but especially as he pushes Wilson to a soaring crescendo at the end.
(Sunnyside Records, 2023)
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