By Michael Ullman

This is a trio of superb songsters, whose individual lyricisms support each other.

Kevin Hays-Ben Street-Billy Hart Trio: Bridges (Smoke Sessions)

Though only 55, pianist Kevin Hays has been recording as a leader (or here as co-leader) since 1990, when he made El Matador with an all-star group that included tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson. He’s recorded frequently with various masterful trios: in 1997 he made his Andalusia with Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette. He’s been a valued sideman to many. I’ve heard him with the Chris Potter band and with Eddie Henderson, for instance. He arranged Joe Henderson’s Selections from Porgy and Bess. Still, he has never to my ears sounded better than on this new disc, Bridges, for Smoke Session. It’s a beautifully recorded group effort. Bassist Ben Street has recorded with Sam Rivers, Danilo Perez, and Ethan Iverson. His most recent recording (that I know about) is with Yelena Eckemoff, on her 2023 The Lonely Man and His Fish. Street has also repeatedly recorded with the Billy Hart quintet. Perhaps that’s one reason why Bridges, which features both Street and Hart with Hays, sounds so together: this is a gathering of old musical friends. The grand old man of the trio is, of course, the 82-year-old drummer, Billy Hart, who first recorded (with Wes Montgomery!) in 1961. His performance here leads me to wonder: could anyone play more modestly or more perfectly than Hart does in accompanying Hays? He’s graceful and restrained. His age has prompted him to be more contained, but it hasn’t withered his skills.

Bridges includes three originals by pianist Hays, and one, “Irah,” by Billy Hart. The disc opens gently with Hays playing a solo introduction to his “Butterfly.” His spare, precise lines, their big sound and effortless lyricism remind me that he is also a singer, though not on this disc. “Butterfly” is a ballad that merits repeated listenings. After Hays’s introduction, the performance takes off after a single rim shot by Hart, whose cymbals seem to murmur throughout Hays’s solo. The trio catches fire simultaneously, responding to the swells and rising tension in the pianist’s solo with complete understanding. Hays’s “Song for Peace” is a slower, more somber piece. Here, Hart accompanies with brushes swirling on his snare. Hays’s “Row Row Row” has nothing aquatic about it: the pianist refers to the tone rows on which the composition is based, not the expected boat going gently down the stream. It’s a lot cheerier than anything Schoenberg did. In one early phrase of this tonally uncentered work, Hays seems to tumble down the keyboard. His ability to improvise coherently on this material is remarkable, as is Street’s ability to find the right notes in accompaniment. Street solos here as well.

The covers of other composers are deftly chosen. On Bill Frisell’s composition “Throughout,” Hays plays the rocking accompanying figure that Frisell invented and repeats in his own versions, beginning with 1983’s In Line. (Frisell also recorded “Throughout” in a two-guitar version with guitarist Jim Hall.) Hays’s version materializes as a somehow fraught conversation between his left hand’s repetitive figure and his right hand’s energized flow. (He drops the figure in mid improvisation, though Street continues to hint at it.) “Capricorn” is Wayne Shorter’s from Super Nova (1969). Shorter’s version begins with a rhythm section uproar: a single thumping note from the bass and then various rolls from the drums. In the midst of this disturbed background, Shorter enters serenely on soprano sax. Hays puts his own stamp on this piece, beginning with solo piano politely outlining Shorter’s melody before standing aside for bass and drums to secure their entrance.

The Beatles are represented here too: the trio plays an innocent-sounding, swinging version of “With a Little Help from My Friends.” After Billy Hart’s “Irah,” Hays ends with Milton Nascimento’s “Bridges (Travessia),” which he introduces with a fragment of another Nascimento classic, “Ponta de Areia.” Perhaps Wayne Shorter, who recorded the piece with composer Nascimento, brought this melody to Hays’s mind. In an interview, Ben Street said of Hays: “It always seems to me that Kevin has the capacity to sing in his mind and then accompany himself on the piano. That makes for such a nice connection with Billy, who has played with and learned from so many singers.” So this is a trio of songsters, whose individual lyricisms support each other. Street said sometimes he thinks of the group as a quartet (with an invisible singer.) They fit together so well that sometimes I think of the trio as a single instrument.

Michael Ullman studied classical clarinet and was educated at Harvard, from which he received a PhD in English. The author or co-author of two books on jazz, he has written on jazz and classical music for the Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, High Fidelity, Stereophile, Boston Phoenix, Boston Globe, and other venues. His articles on Dickens, Joyce, Kipling, and others have appeared in academic journals. For over 20 years, he has written a bi-monthly jazz column for Fanfare Magazine, for which he also reviews classical music. At Tufts University, he teaches mostly modernist writers in the English Department and jazz and blues history in the Music Department. He plays piano badly.