J.J. Wright In Pittsburgh

Listening to WDVE-FM right now, relieved that Randy Baumann is back on the air today. I was starting to worry that his "vacation" might be something more permanent. That's sort of how it played out when Jim Krenn left the station a few years ago, and after losing WJAS-AM a few weeks ago, I don't really trust the bean counters in commercial radio to do the right thing.

There is a series of jazz shows happening at the Frick Fine Arts Building on Pitt's campus. Wednesday night, it was pianist JJ Wright (seen here, photo from his webpage not by me). The day before his show, he released his album Inward Looking Outward on Ropeadope. His music has an understated quality to it, staying in one harmonic place for a while but really developing what he's doing.

Having heard the album a few weeks ago, it seemed like it would be okay to bring my son along with me. It wasn't going to be a Matthew Shipp thunderfest (he's coming here on September 15 by the way). I was right. We got there right as Wright and his trio were in their first song. Donovan had his soundproof headphones with him, just in case it got loud. It didn't, really, but he kept them on during everything except the quiet, solo piano passages, at which point he took them off and looked inquisitively at Wright. After about 20 minutes, he asked if I packed any snacks (I hadn't) and asked if he could play with my phone. That's still a pretty good length of time, for a seven year old.

The auditorium in the Frick Fine Arts Building has good acoustics and nothing was miked. Onstage, drummer Nate Wood's kick drum was almost over-powering Wright's piano. At first it seemed like Ike Sturm's bass guitar was the volume culprit because the kick drum was operating in the same frequency. The piano was audible but not completely clear all of the time. Wright also seemed to have a preference for the middle register of the instrument too.

Still, it was a great performance. The group was tight, the tunes were kind of lengthy, moving on through different sections, not relying on head-solo constructs, or at least nothing that was obvious. But there was a movement to it, which makes me want to go back and reexamine the album.  In addition to a five-part suite, which is not in numerical order and not in succession on the disc, the album includes covers of Jon Brion, Sufjan Stevens and - one that ended the set on Wednesday - Phil Collins' "Take Me Home." I'm not a fan of Phil (far from it, in fact) but it was a good number, with a groovy beat (sort of like "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover") that would appeal to the Bad Plus fans.