Bill Stewart's Band Menu

Pay Your Dues Fondue. Hand Rolled Drum Rug with Perspiration Reduction. Finger Snap Peas with Second Hand Emulsion. Mixed Sorbets with Freshly Grated Cymbal Stand Felts. These are the menu selections for drummer Bill Stewart's new trio recording. Along with bassist Larry Grenadier and tenor sax player Walter Smith III, Stewart has created a sly take on three jazz guys hammering it out and improvising like madmen. I want to call Band Menu an exercise in free jazz, but it is far too coherent to be called anything else than pure be-bop, perhaps minus the theme-improv-theme structure. Let's face it, this is highly listenable stuff, defined by its freedom but also carried by a quiet dedication to melody that turns out to be quite subversive.

Stewart is obviously an original jazz drummer. He's able to extract an encyclopedia of noise from his kit, and he isn't afraid to wander--it's been a long time since I've heard a wood block strike sound so inventive. He has a definite "I can do anything I want to" vibe, and each of these compositions are led by his curiosity, mated to a bad attitude. That's what makes this recording different than most--it's as if these guys don't care what you think. Either you get in the car or you miss out on the time of your life. Step on it.

The wry humor here isn't just confined to the menu. The songs wear the ideas on their lapels, the most obvious being "F U Donald." There's also "Hair and Teeth," "Good Goat" and "Think Before You Think." Here's the tricky question, however--does this humor invade the actual music? That's hard to determine since these are jazz instrumentals, played with poise and skill. There aren't any obvious clues, such as pennywhistles or other Spike Jonesian conceits. But I think that attitude, and the way these three brandish it, is comedy of the highest order and meant to entertain the few.

It keeps coming back to this sublime sense of obstinance, this growing sense that Stewart, Grenadier and Smith are telling jokes just to see if you can get them, to see if you are hip, to see if you're "jazz" enough. There's nothing goofy or trivial about Band Menu, just a gloriously layered amusement wrapped up in stunning, serious performances.

As for me, I'll take the Wilted Recording Contract Salad.

Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart's Toy Tunes

Another day, another organ trio. As I've said repeatedly, this is not a bad thing. I'm really digging the preponderance of these ensembles in today's contemporary jazz scene. After listening to a least a dozen of these outfits over the last few months, the thing that strikes me the most is how these simple trios can adopt such a distinctive sound and attitude despite the simplicity of their arrangements--hip, nostalgic, earthy, sinister, whatever else you got. Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart have been recording as an organ trio since the early '90s--Toy Tunes is their twelfth release--and they whip up a distinctive mood as well, and that's mellow.

Mellow can be intriguing, of course, if you know how to focus and listen carefully. While there's a certain spareness to their overall sound, bordering on reticent, they teeter along the precarious edges of jazz enough so that they're never boring or indifferent in the way they pursue familiar themes and melodies. This smoothness, always flirting with the adventurous, is usually centered on Bernstein's guitar. It's that classic jazz guitar sound, clear and unfettered with distortion. He plays the lead most of the time, carrying the melody, while Goldings' Hammond B-3 provides the atmosphere. I know I overuse the term texture at times when I'm describing jazz, but it's an essential trait for most B-3s. There's a flow, an almost drone-like layer of feeling and emotion that acts as a canvas for the other players. Stewart, the drummer, invokes much of the excitement with his restlessness and his constant shimmer. As a trio, these seasoned musicians are the proverbial still waters. There's a lot going on that you won't hear from the next room.

Goldings summarizes this unique feel and structure by revealing that "our approach has never been dictated by the 'organ trio' format but rather by our individual personalities." This is precisely right. Toy Tunes is one of those rare organ trio recordings where you can easily follow each musician through the track and keep the other two in the periphery. In other words, you can listen to each song straight three times and have three separate impressions. Despite the calming effect of the whole, Goldings, Bernstein and Stewart are often pursuing separate journeys--they're walking down the road together but seeing and feeling different things. This makes for a sound that begs you to crawl around inside of it.

The trio also specializes in intricate song structures. The first tune, "Fagen," is obviously a tribute to the famous Donald from Steely Dan, and it seems like a natural instinct to pay homage to another individual who prefers innovative song structures. While the majority of tunes are originals, with equal composing credits from each of the three, there are also knowing nods in the form of adaptations from kindred spirits such as Carla Bley ("And Now the Queen") and the title tune from Wayne Shorter. G,B & S is hardly an organ trio for beginners, but these gentlemen are a gift to those who want to think about their jazz as well as float along with it.