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Sam Yahel Trio

Truth and Beauty | Origin

By ADAM GOLD | June 27, 2007

3.0 Stars

Sam Yahel’s expressive approach to the Hammond B3 organ has made him one of the most sought-after sidemen in jazz. He’s appeared on Norah Jones’s Come Away with Me and Madeleine Peyroux’s Half the Perfect World, toured with guitarist Bill Frisell, and supported tenor-saxophonist Joshua Redman in the backbeat-jazz-pioneering Elastic band. Truth and Beauty sees him reunited with Redman and fellow Elastic band drummer Brian Blade, and the trio’s synergy is as dynamic as ever. The opening title track could have appeared on 2002’s Elastic (Warner Bros.), with Blade’s colorful bop-rock drumming supporting punchy organ comps and a simple, catchy melody. But Yahel soon ventures into free jazz on a rendition of Ornette Coleman’s “Check Up” that’s as fragmented and impressionistic as the disc’s collage cover art. Woven among Yahel’s originals are a stark take on Paul Simon’s “Night Game” and a meditative solo performance of Gilberto Gil & João Donato’s “A Paz.” And Yahel is able to communicate a lot with the tweak of a few drawbars — his navigation of what fellow keyboardist Brad Mehldau calls in the liner notes the “sonic palette” of his instrument.

Related: 2009: The year in jazz, Boston music news: April 25, 2008, Scene and heard, More

2009: The year in jazz
Here, in no particular order, are some of my favorite things from among the people, CDs, and concerts I wrote about in 2009.
Boston music news: April 25, 2008
“As far as I know,” says saxophonist Ken Field, “ Forked Tongue is the only CD ever released to include songs by both Ornette Coleman and Billy Idol.”
Scene and heard
Entertainment companies are pumping out music DVD titles by the hundreds, and 2008 will see a deluge of releases across all genres.
City of Dreams: A Collections of New Orleans Music
City of Dreams never comes off as an epitaph.
St. Vincent
Clark’s soaring soprano is capable of hitting a Billie Holiday swoon just as easily as a sinister incantation.
John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp spent his last two studio albums in experimental mode, inviting Chuck D and India.Arie aboard 2001’s Cuttin’ Heads and digging into unvarnished country blues on ’03’s Trouble No More .
Guitar heroes too
“People simply can’t describe our music,” says drummer Andrew Barr of the Boston-based trio the Slip as he looks back over the band’s past decade together. The Slip, "Children of December" (mp3)
Los Lobos
How have this band of East LA wolves not only survived but thrived in the hostile midlands of popular music for 30 years?
Solo, trio, orchestra
Charlap made the evening a primer on the American Songbook.
Rae of light
Touted as the second coming of Erykah Badu and Billie Holiday by the London press, Corinne Bailey Rae is a twentysomething singer whose luxurious, lazy phrasing and sweet tone are closer to Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues .
Paul Motian Band
The latest from the septuagenarian drum master closely follows last year’s near-perfect I Have the Room Above Her.
New Guitar Summit: Jay Geils, Duke Robillard, Gerry Beaudoin
This cool, sleek soundtrack for a night of cocktails, sophisticated banter, and, hell, maybe even nookie brings the elegance of ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s jazz blues crisply into the present.
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ARTICLES BY ADAM GOLD

SAM YAHEL TRIO | June 27, 2007
Sam Yahel’s expressive approach to the Hammond B3 organ has made him one of the most sought-after sidemen in jazz.

ROUGHING IT | June 05, 2007
The Rough Guide series has long been a staple of the travel publishing industry; less well known is the company’s music division.

IN WYNTON'S SILHOUETTE | January 28, 2010
Wynton Marsalis’s iTunes exclusive Live Session — featured in Apple’s recent “Silhouettes” TV ad — is proof enough that jazz is as downloadable as any hip DJ mash-up.