American pianist Steve Kuhn’s playing credentials are as impressive as they are lengthy. Starting out in 1959 with trumpeter Kenny Durham, he went on to work with John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Art Farmer, and Gary Burton over the next few years. Kuhn recorded this 1968 album during his four-year sojourn in Stockholm. He teams up here with the best Scandinavian rhythm section of that era, bassist Palle Danielsson and drummer Jon Christensen, who were to become members of the legendary Keith Jarrett ‘European Quartet’. The title piece, a tasty Michel Legrand composition, flows from the Latin pulse of its theme on into Kuhn’s surging, hard-swinging solo. The Kuhn original Silver evokes the pianist’s contemplative side, and J. J. Johnson’s ballad Lament stays in this introspective vein before segueing into the relaxed Latin feel of Once We Loved. There’s a driving impressionistic impulse to Tom Jones that modulates into a lilting Burt Bacharach medley, Windows of the World & Here I Am, whereas Kuhn plays I Fall in Love too Easily with the required sense of pathos. Carla Bley’s Ad Infinitum is the album’s tour de force, encompassing the avante-garde, loping, Latinesque moments, and intense, propulsive modern jazz. Exquisitely recorded, this album is trio play at its refined best; it’s simply a beautiful album.
