In more than 60 years of recorded work, NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron has rarely released albums of solo piano. Two appeared in 1981 and ’82, with a third from late 1990. In July of 2022, at the age of 79, Barron recorded material for his fourth and best solo album,
The Source. The nine tunes comprise four originals, a pair by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington, two by Thelonious Monk and, at the center, the standard “I’m Confessin’.” It’s a wisely balanced album that never lags — a genuine danger for this format — and that, throughout, showcases Barron’s versatility, as well as his tangible joy in making art.
The Source opens with the edgiest tune of the Paris session. “What If?” largely sustains its groove because of an angular, eight-note motif for the left hand, allowing the right to unleash pyrotechnic statements with and against the repetitive foundation. Barron coaxes “Isfahan” into a jaunty stroll and luxuriates still more in “Daydream,” the longest cut on the disc. Of the Monk tunes, he embraces the spatial openness of “Teo” to guide his solo — winking to the composer with a final trill — and he plunges into “Well, You Needn’t” with sustained, upbeat urgency.
Three of the four final tracks, each more than eight minutes, are originals, and they are even more intimate. “Dolores Street, S.F.” ruminates on the location with inviting wistfulness, and his better-known composition, “Sunshower,” slips in and out of a flirtatious Calypso feel. The album closes with the gentle “Phantoms,” which, like “What If?,” he debuted in ’86 and has explored ever since. Barron recorded three tunes from
The Source on previous solo albums, but one hears a new level of mastery now, where the sensibility of hard bop has fused organically with memorable elegance. —
Sascha Feinstein https://open.spotify.com/album/5e2gQsP9jvj5telqe9zERG?si=JhzVm3TdROShdXAsG0kb7Q
