Joann Monné Quartet- New Bottles, Old Wine

When the Jazz cellars of all ages resound in the 21st century. That’s what this drumless quartet offers us, with two particularly spirited blowers whose trumpeter is reminiscent of Tom Harrell’s voluptuous, Turnaround-esque playing (Encore…!).

Joan Monné, the Barcelona pianist who leads this quartet, has already played his keyboard with a number of top names, including Benny Golson, Dick Oatts, Don Braden, James Moody, Jean Toussaint, Bill McHenry, Joe Magnarelli, Peter King, Jesse Davis, Scott Hamilton, Harry Allen, Grant Stewart or Peter Bernstein… He managed to pull it all off, though!

The album gives pride of place to the pianist’s own compositions, except for the brilliant rereadings of two standards, My One And Only Love and All The Things you Are, which the pianist himself says are his own rereadings of his compositions with a quartet without a drummer, to “give a fresh voice to old songs“, he says.

Let’s agree that this rereading is particularly successful, and in fact constitutes a first for musicians who are still little known in the French jazz scene. Special mention should be made of the four musicians, whose presence and expressiveness shine through with every note they play.

Surprisingly respectful of the score in the standards and astonishingly virtuosic in the new compositions, the album well deserves its title; note the trumpeter’s perfectly mastered flight on “Homenage“.

Les couleurs sonores des souffleurs s’exposent encore sur Lluna avec un dithyrambe à la trompette qui sent la respiration continue, ou en navigation de conserve toutefois ponctués de chorus très savamment partagés (La Broma), à noter d’ailleurs la citation très surprenante, comme quoi dans l’excellence la loufoquerie peut se révéler géniale…

The whole is the sign of resolutely modern writing, albeit rooted in very academic hard-bop, with daring changes of rhythm (Where’s Freddie), and saxophone playing that plays with tessitura, sometimes giving impressions of soprano alongside warm baritones. A bassist who is very present in his…let’s say…Mingusian support and who reinforces a pianistic discourse…let’s say…Powellian!

The sonic colors of the blowers are on display again on Lluna, with a trumpet dithyramb that smacks of continuous breathing, or in canned navigation punctuated by very skilfully shared choruses (La Broma), note the very surprising quotation, proving that in excellence zaniness can turn out to be genius…

A recording where the absence of drums is in no way felt, the rhythm and punctuation are well present, no doubt the explosive verve of the four masters of ambience.

In a word: a quartet of the highest calibre. And the epithets of praise should follow.