George Cables: Too Close For Comfort

  Veteran pianist George Cables continues his stellar run of trio albums for HighNote with the sublimely beautiful Too Close For Comfort. Working with his regular bandmates, Essiet Essiet on bass and Victor Lewis on drums, Cables, who also produced the date, starts out with the rapid fire attack of the title track. It’s a song that the pianist says he “fell in love with as a young man” and it seemed like a good time to record it, with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Covid-19 pandemic. Three Cables originals are up next. Circle Of Love is a gentle blues dedicated to his tightly knit circle of friends, supporting him through recent health problems. The perky This is My Song is a lovely expression of what Cables’ calls his “positive spirit,” while Klimo looks back to the pianist’s days in Los Angeles with a burst of Latin rhythm and a pace tailor-made for Victor Lewis. The drummer takes a rest for For All We Know, a standard that Cables remembers hearing sung by Billie Holiday. Here it’s the occasion for an intimate and prolonged duet of crisp piano and the solid and unflashy bass of Essiet. (Odd fact: the bassist once recorded this song with a vocal by Art Blakey when he was in the Blakey band in 1990!). Next is the bouncy and energetic performance of Crazy Love, a piece by pianist and friend Tadataka Unno. (Real world aside: Unno was attacked and badly injured in New York in October, 2020. If you want to help him, go to gofund.me/4ec4aca3.) His attractive tune is played as a soulful duet with Lewis, playing drums with his hands instead of sticks. The late Bobby Hutcherson recorded a number of Cables’ compositions. In a mark of respect, the trio offers their vigorous take on Hutcherson’s mid-Seventies composition Roses Poses and a cheerful version of Hutcherson’s Teddy. A delightfully upbeat rendition of Frank Loesser’s I’ve Never Been in Love Before comes between the Hutcherson songs, and the set comes to an end with a brief and charming solo piano piece that Cables calls A Valentine For You. You really can’t go wrong with a musician who was a favorite sideman for the likes of Dexter Gordon from 1977 to 1979 and Art Pepper from 1976 to 1982, so if it’s deeply felt and solidly swinging piano music that you’re craving, Too Close For Comfort is for you. 

HighNote HCD 7335; George Cables (p) Essiet Essiet (b) Victor Lewis (d); NYC, September 9, 2020; Too Close For Comfort/ Circle of Love/ This is My Song/ Klimo/ For All We Know/ Crazy Love/ Roses Poses/ I’ve Never Been in Love Before/ Teddy/ A Valentine For You; 56:19. www.jazzdepot.com