Lost in Geneva is simply a superb trio record, making the most of every turn the music takes.
4166 Records
Kris Davis – piano; Robert Hurst – bass; Jonathan Blake – drums
There is something wonderfully alert about this trio. The music on Lost in Geneva seems to be looking around corners, curious about what might be there. Kris Davis, bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Johnathan Blake have played together long enough to know one another’s habits, yet there is always something shifting between them.
Davis can make the piano sound both delicate and restless. On “The Ballerina,” bowed bass and high, spare piano notes suggest wind chimes and the graceful movements of a ballet dancer up on her toes. The rhythm moves gently back and forth, the bass grows stronger, adding a woody elegance, and Davis’s lines drift, freer.
That delicacy doesn’t mean the trio stays quiet. “The Subtext” opens with Davis throwing notes from both hands across the keyboard, then settles into a tight rhythmic passage with Hurst repeating a bass phrase and Blake providing concise, almost machine-like accents. Davis sounds completely sure of where she’s going, even as the music keeps changing around her. Later, her repeated phrases and countermelodies seem to pull the piano in two directions at once.
“Congestion Pricing” takes its title from the tolls charged to drivers entering lower Manhattan, and the music has some of that same stop-and-go tension. Hurst starts with low, repeating bass notes, then the tempo picks up as Davis drops short piano phrases above them. Melodies and rhythms cross over one another, while Blake’s tight, click-clacking stick work adds to the sense of traffic. Davis even gives us a brief glimpse of how good a post-bop pianist she could be.
The title piece is much shorter and more open. Davis plays pretty flurries of notes, then moves into short, searching phrases. Hurst’s bass resonates beneath Blake’s light drums and cymbals, while Davis’s phrases move around it.
Hurst’s “The Bluesy Bird in Bob’s Backyard” has Davis playing delicate, ascending piano phrases that gather into little clusters before taking off in another direction. Blake’s drums get more insistent and Hurst’s bass pushes the rhythm harder. When Hurst solos, Davis stays in the background, adding an occasional note as Blake keeps the beat steady underneath. “Northern Flicker” takes the piano in a completely different direction, with ringing, tapping and knocking sounds, ending on a repeated phrase that resembles water gurgling.
Lost in Geneva is simply a superb trio record, making the most of every turn the music takes.
