Daichi Kondo Trio

Live at B Flat March 18 2003

Daichi Kondo—piano
Richard Davis—bass
Lewis Nash—drums

It’s not just any piano player that can ask Richard Davis and Lewis Nash to back him up. Davis has played bass with some of the most outstanding jazz groups since the 1950s, and Nash is perhaps the first first-call drummer in New York. Kondo, though, clearly takes these heavyweights not as pressure but as challenge—a challenge he meets with crisp piano lines and thoughtful lyricism.

Choosing songs from his several CDs, which also feature Davis on bass, the trio got right down to work. Their close interaction created satisfying innovations on the piano trio format on every number. All three were clearly relaxed to be playing together and not out to prove anything, and the audience slipped right into the same mood. The trio was easy to relate to, with the mid-sized crowd of fans pleased to be in good hands.

The solos impressed most by not trying to impress. Davis played arco with amazing technique, adding a smooth flow to two bop numbers when a hard-popping, speedy solo would have been expected. His technique behind the other players kept the low end rumbling like thunder. The dense, deep tones he pulled from his bass expanded not only the depth, but the breadth of the trio.

Playing more out front than usual on his numerous session recordings, Nash’s solos amazed. He has such a vast set of techniques at his command that the combinations are endless. Whether playing fast, Latin, or slightly funky, the ideas kept flowing. During some solos he would head in a direction, only to balk like a good batter, in perfect control, and pull back to head in another. His solos formed themselves around the subtleties of the melody, so that you could hear clear echoes of the melody line in your head, even while he’s playing rhythmic variations.

Kondo’s piano playing showed why he can ask two such top-notch players to join him. He can fly through the bop changes without stopping to catch his breath, but more than that, he has a nuanced lyricism that picks out pretty parts of the melody for emphasis and development. He develops his ideas around the inherent beauty of the song. He’s a technical player, but not technique for its own sake, rather as a part of expressing the whole. Hopefully, Kondo will be playing more often around town, even when Davis and Nash aren’t around.