Kenny Barron: 'So Many Lovely Things,' 1995

A new previously unreleased album from Elemental is perfect in every way

In 1979, I spent the fall hitchhiking alone through Europe. I had graduated from college that spring and, with my savings, headed off on an adventure before my work life began.

Much of my time on the road that October was devoted to thumbing through Wales, spending nights at youth hostels. I loved that the country was way off the beaten path and that there was a storied respect for long-distance hiking. Within a week, I found Wales to be an enchanting and bewitching place where sheep outnumber residents, the countryside was a vivid green even in the autumn, the people were warm and generous, and anything could happen, usually for the better.

Today, of course, you’d have to be crazy to do something like that, but back then, the world was still pretty quaint. Drivers gave young foreigners like me a lift without fear of being murdered. Most were curious and asked lots of questions. In Wales, some of those who picked me up whisked me home for a hot lunch.

Some days I’d wind up having two lunches—since the next lift took me home as well. Everyone wanted to know all about New York, whether I knew French Connection star Gene Hackman, and whether the city was like it looked on TV cop shows. My New York accent was their entertainment and I was treated as if I had stepped out of their television set.

Fast forward to August 1995. Back then, the Kenny Barron Trio was on a brief tour of the U.K. and wound up in Brecon, Wales, at the Christ College Auditorium as part of the Brecon Jazz Festival.

Only about 7,500 people lived there in 1995. As I recall from a lunch at a Brecon pub, the town is quaint and sits just north of Wales’s largest mountain range, the Brecon Beacons. In the summer, it’s a popular destination for Welsh vacationers. [Photo above of Brecon, courtesy of the Brecon Town Council]

At the time, the trio consisted of Kenny Barron (p), Ray Drummond (b) and Ben Riley (d). Now, Elemental Music has released So Many Lovely Things: Live in Brecon, the trio’s previously unissued concert at the Brecon Jazz Festival.

The music comes from the Jordi Suñol Archives. For 60 years, the Barcelona-based producer has organized tours, booked festivals and concerts, and produced his own events, taping them with permission along the way and releasing them with the blessing of the musicians or their estates.

Throughout his career, Jordi has amassed an archive of nearly 1,000 taped performance recordings in Europe that have never been commercially available and only recently were digitized and catalogued for release.

Produced by Jordi and Zev Feldman, this new release is astonishing in so many ways. You’ll find it on a limited-edition 2-LP set on 180-gram vinyl. The recording also is also out on a 2-CD set, and via digital download plus streaming.

In many respects, Kenny took over where Oscar Peterson left off, swinging like mad and performing with a muscular and magical technique. On many of the new album’s tracks, there are sections where you can’t believe what you’re hearing.

The tracks:

• Oh, Look at Me Now (Joe Bushkin / John DeVries)

• Up Jumped Spring (Freddie Hubbard)

• Shuffle Boil (Thelonious Monk)

• Time Was (Gabriel Luna / Miguel Prado / Bob Russell)

• Silent Rain (Kenny Barron)

• Ask Me Now (Thelonious Monk)

• Nikara’s Song (Kenny Barron)

• The Surrey With the Fringe on Top (Richard Rodgers / Oscar Hammerstein II)

• The Very Thought of You (Ray Noble)

• Canadian Sunset (Norman Gimbel / Eddie Heywood)

Some of the tracks that stand out are Up Jumped Spring, the Monk pieces Shuffle Boil and Ask Me Now. But to be honest, this is a perfect album, and choosing favorites seems almost absurd. The entire concert was breathtaking, and the trio works together beautifully.

I can’t recall the last time I heard such a terrific piano trio album. There’s so much going on, and the fidelity is warm and sterling, as if recorded in a studio. Kenny, Ray and Ben keep the music compelling throughout.

To buy the vinyl, go here. To buy the CD, download or stream, go here.

Here’s Up Jumped Spring…

And here’s Ask Me Now…