The Rhodes electric piano, reviled by many purists, but a key new sound in jazz from the late 1960s on, is the centre of attention in Triology, a series of videos produced in London by DJ Gilles Peterson. The first, featuring a whirlwind of Hancock-esque playing from Brazilian pianist Amaro Freitas, is available now. Freitas, first inspired in the jazz sphere by seeing Chick Corea’s Akoustic Band on DVD, is described as a “visionary” for mixing jazz with Afro-Brazilian rhythm – something George Duke was on to in the 1980s – but his playing is certainly extremely fluent and exciting in the 1970s Hancock-Corea mode.
The Peterson videos reflect a recent revival of the Rhodes piano, which, since its introduction in the 1960s, has been through various iterations under various owners, including a notorious digital version produced by Roland in the late 1980s. In 2021 the Rhodes was relaunched by a UK-based company, Rhodes Music Group Ltd, headed by Matt Pelling, whose goal was to make the best possible version of Harold Rhodes’ electro-mechanical tine piano.
The company says of its venture and its first product, the Rhodes Mk8, “It’s impossible to reinvent an instrument as iconic as the Rhodes piano. So we’re not going to try. Instead, we’re taking everything we love about the Rhodes MK1 and rebuilding it from the ground up with the highest-quality parts, the most cutting-edge design, and very best engineers.”
The Triology series is filmed in Peterson’s Brownswood Basement studio and combines musical performance with artist interviews. The first has Freitas in trio with David Mrakpor (b) and Sam ‘Barrell’ Jones (d) and two more episodes – each featuring a different trio – are set to be released on 14 October and 28 November.