As One
Here's an authentic organ trio with all the size and scope of Mount Everest, and twice the cool. Sure, there are Hammond B-3 players with more extravagant floor routines and bluster, but if they gave out medals for swing, subtlety, suppleness, sound, and soul, then Larry Goldings would wear Olympic gold. Long-time collaboratorsBill Stewarton drums andPeter Bernsteinon guitar round out a trinity of improvisers that operate with the free-flowing give and take, structured architecture, shifting tempo, and varied dynamics of a good basketball team. Thus, on the ballad "The Thrill Is Gone," guitarist Bernstein builds his phrases from ripe, sapphire-hued teardrops, more intent on the quality of his tone and a smoky evocation of the mood than on showy flourishes of notes. Few drummers could vacuum-seal a medium blues groove quite as tightly as Stewart does on "Back in the Day," with Goldings ushering the theme on a woolen pile of exotic, glowing harmonies. On "Calls" the organist provides just the right degree of low-end riptide to make things slightly convulsive and desperate for guitarist Bernstein, as Stewart's dry, driving beat seems to envelop the proceedings in heat without consuming the groove in his own fire; and when the organist enters, it is with the studied, canny calm of a Hammond B-3 master who knows how to let the instrument do the heavy lifting, building  tension just as oodles of power are held in reserve. The surreal tonal potential of the Hammond B-3 gives this date an intimate aura of possibility. He portrays the instrument with such Near Eastern warmth and shimmering layers of bell-like, moaning timbres, that Debussy,Bill Evans, and that forgotten hero of the modern organ,Larry Young(Khalid Yasin), come to mind.--Chip Stern