Tommaso Starace Organ Trio: Live At The Beaver Inn
I am not familiar with Tommaso Starace and pleasantly surprised. Hot on the heels of peer and champion Eric Alexander, the Milanese tenor saxophonist – naturalised Englishman since 1994 – combines a testerone tone with harmonic finesse and edgy twists and turns, inspired by the tenor greats from the 1950s/60s. High praise. Another similarity is their fondness for the organ combo.
In this live setting, for a responsive crowd near the Torridge cliffs, Starace’s organ trio featuring Martin Jenkins on organ and Pip Harbon on drums, comes up trumps, stretching out on Thelonious Monk’s We See and Cedar Walton’s Firm Roots. Equally ardent, its take on Kenny Barron’s Voyage burns down the house, walls divided by a spontaneous tenor-drums battle.
This description doesn’t take into account crowd-pleasers Fungii Mama, Blue Mitchell’s unbeatable calypso tune, and Erroll Garner’s Misty, tastefully interpreted in ballad mode. Starace’s sound – melodious but firm – develops its full potential here. The audience is sitting pretty, I’m not complaining either.
Discography
We See; Groovy Samba; Firm Roots; Stablemates; Misty; Fungii Mama; Voyage (57.49)
Starace (ts); Martin Jenkins (org); Pip Harbon (d). Appledore, 13 May 2025.
Dodicilune Ed619
Libor Šmoldas Quartet: Sorry, Miles!
I can see for miles and miles along the main road of global misery but who you gonna call to drive it away? Ghostbusters? I’d rather, for comic relief, give Libor Šmoldas a ring. The premise of the Czech guitarist’s Sorry, Miles! – a presentation of compositions that Miles Davis nicked from others, complemented by Davis-imbued Šmoldas originals – is far from corny, mildly ironic instead, and worked out with panache.
Good humour in the liner notes, serious business on compact disc. The title track sets the pace, a line with a vintage post-bop vibe that pays homage, through acute interaction and a contagious ebb and flow, Davis’s “Second Great Quintet”. Like butterflies on a breeze at the lake, Šmoldas and pianist Mikulás Pokorný speak their well-balanced piece in Dig and Four, not least on the fugue-like ballad line Richard’s Regret.
The latter is about Richard Carpenter, full-time crook who gave The Dark Prince a small bundle of drug money and put his name to Walkin’. One doesn’t need to know all these stories from the “good old days” to enjoy the fruits of Šmoldas’s thoroughly modern quartet, though it certainly adds some oomph.
Discography
Sorry, Miles!; Dig; Square Head; Richard’s Regret; Donna Lee; Four; Tune Up; Prima Dancers; Sonny (Solar); Smooch (44.38)
Libor Šmoldas (g); Mikulás Pokorný (p); Tomaš Bároš (b); Jesse Simpson (d). Svarov, 6 & 7 November 2025.
Bivak Records 017
