DAVID JANEWAY TRIO

LIVE AT BLUE LLAMA

Steeple Chase Records

David Janeway, piano/composer; Robert Hurst III, bass; Billy Hart, drums.

Certain jazz songs have been heard so frequently, it’s hard to reinvent songs like “All the Things You are” but David Janeway and his trusty trio have done it.  Janeway opens the piece with a rubato piano introduction.  It leaves the listener wondering where his musical journey will lead us. Suddenly, without warning, Billy Hart slaps the drums into place and Robert Hurst joins in, walking his double bass to match the tempo and mood. The grand piano sets a Latin rhythm with dancing chords and then, the tune turns Straight-ahead and full of fire.

This album was recorded in Ann Arbor, Michigan at their premier jazz club, Blue Llama. You will enjoy eight wonderful standard jazz tunes and two original compositions by Janeway. He is a jazz musician from Detroit, a city that boasts a string of all-star jazz pianist including Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, Hank Jones, Roland Hanna, Terry Pollard, Alice Coltrane, Hugh Lawson, Kirk Lightsey, Johnny O’Neal and Geri Allen. He continues the legacy.

Although Janeway was born in Rochester, NY in 1955, he relocated to Detroit with his family when he was five.  His dad was originally from the ‘Motor City.’  Harold McKinney and Marcus Belgrave were two of Janeway’s mentors. Belgrave told him there were no ‘wrong’ notes played in music.

“If you play a note you don’t like, it’s about the next note and creating a context. Marcus was masterful at being able to work with a note that might be a little suspect and his ability to create melody in a solo,” David Janeway writes in his liner notes.

Janeway says he was taught two commandments defining the Detroit style of playing. “One is the groove. …the music doesn’t have the same impact without the Afro-American experience. No. 2, is the spirit of giving back, the spirit of community,” the pianist explained.

You will hear all of that and more during this entertaining and well-played album of music. Janeway composed a tune titled “Forward Motion” and another one called “K’s Shuffle” that struts happily across my listening room. Robert Hurst takes a bass solo using his bow to sing an improvised melody.  This original composition quickly becomes one of my favorites on his album.

Surprisingly, David Janeway has lived a double life, one as an accomplished working psychiatrist and the other as a musician.

“You have to put your ego on the back burner in the service of greater good. At the heart of music and medicine is intimate listening and building community” David Janeway explained.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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