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by Rick Culver
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 It's About Time |
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The Cliff Monear Trio "It's About Time"
Phone 810-210-1774
or
www.cliffmonear.com
The first tune on this incredible jazz CD, Bernie’s Tune, roared out of the gate at quarter note equals 300, with an introduction by drummer Scott Kretzer. I’m fairly jaded as a jazz listener, but this is good. Forty seconds into the tune, after the melodic statement, Cliff began his solo. About a minute and 10 seconds into the tune, Cliff began reminding me stylistically and technically of Bill Evans’ solo in George Russell’s All About Rosie, from the 1957 first annual Brandeis Jazz Festival that featured so many incredible third stream original compositions and great jazz soloists. I looked at the rest of the tune list.
Come on, Cliff, Freddie Hubbard’s Red Clay, Brown & Freed’s Temptation? Miles Davis’s Solar, Harburg & Lane’s Old Devil Moon? Eddie Harris’s Freedom Jazz Dance, Wright & Forest’s Baubles, Bangles & Beads?
How can you possibly have this seemingly incompatible juxtaposition of tunes side by side? But wait! You can, if you’re not talking about an “average” player. I can’t use one letter of the word “average” when talking about Cliff Monear. He is as technically competent as classical pianist Andras Schiff, and as creative in both his arrangements and improvisation as Bill Evans is over a musician who only wants to play or write in the style of Lawrence Welk.
I met Cliff in mid-February of 2007 for the first time, on a jazz group playing for a symphony fund-raiser. Also on that same job was my friend and bass player Nick Colandra, one of the best in the business, who was part of my last CD, Painted Scarves, and who is an integral part of this CD. When either of them improvise a solo, my ears mentally open wide in order to hear every note.
You would think that someone with Monear’s technique would never feel the need to put any space in his solo from beginning to end, like Oscar so often did. But I was surprised and delighted to find him constantly breathing melodically as he created, making musical words into sentences, then into paragraphs. Naturally, being a trombone player, I preened slightly when he told me that he learned “how to play with space” from an old trombone player. So if I’m a trombone player, and another trombone player influenced so excellent a pianist, we did good.
What continues to astound me throughout this CD is that Cliff Monear constantly invents new ways to interpret a well known or routine piece of music. He truly captures your emotional and intellectual imagination by creating in the way of all important and significant soloists. He uses not only already great jazz standards like All The Things You Are, but also reinvents commonplace and unexciting tunes like Melancholy Serenade, whose melody immediately suggests to many “jazz” aficionados as not being even worthy of jazz interpretation.
Monear’s 10th tune on this CD, Thelonious Monk’s Blue Monk, is a simple jazz melody that has been known and played for decades by everyone from beginners to the most advanced players. As I listened to his elucidation of this tune, I was struck at how much fun it was to hear again. Cliff arranged and improvised on it with such sparkle and excellence, a commodity not found in many, many jazz CD’s offered in today’s market.
A product of the Berklee College of Music, Cliff Monear has been a professional pianist for more than 20 years. He is an accomplished teacher, in private and at Wayne State University, and excels in his day job with Hammell Music, Inc., as the exclusive Steinway & Sons representative for the Michigan jazz community.
I think back to the last paragraph, and I am irritated to no end. In my opinion, Cliff is one of the best jazz pianists around, even if not known to the general public at large. Whether or not he likes selling pianos or working at Wayne State Un, albeit both very commendable and worthwhile positions in the Michigan musical community, the world-wide jazz community is still being deprived of a uniquely individual stylist. What happened to the 40’s and 50’s when talent inevitably rose to the top, whether marketed professionally or by word of mouth?
To jump on my soap-box for a minute, you only have to turn on the radio to hear the incredible lack of taste and bad judgment in so many pop stars and more than a few jazz artists. So much for marketing actual quality even if this currently seems to be the way of the world.
When I am fortunate enough to hear a group like the Cliff Monear trio for the first time, you can understand why I give so little credence to “fame.” My frustration level is not reduced when, after being in the profession of jazz for nearly 40 years, I only now, and accidentally, have “discovered” this marvelous creator of music. The addition of this CD to your library will be one of the best purchases you make this year.
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Rick Culver |
| About the author: |
| Rick Culver, a fine Jazz trombonist now based in Traverse City, MI, has been a veteran of West Coast Jazz for over 20 years. |
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