Jonathan Kreisberg Trio

William M Dwyer (bdwyer@grove.ufl.EDU)
Fri, 7 Feb 1997 14:55:05 -0500 (EST)

Caught these guys last night and was quite impressed. A reveiw compared
them to Martin Medeski and Wood with guitar instead of organ, but I found
them to be quite talented and perhaps more versatile than MMW--a matter of
personal taste, I'm sure. The set was energetic and the trio tight. The
music is difficult to classify, as with AJ, but ranges from jazz to rock
to funk (not enough of it) to maybe even a little "ultra-lounge," all
driven by guitarist Kreisberg. These guys are young and so have lots of
potential. Especially like the nonstandard covers of a couple standard
jazz chunes, such as Giant Steps. Picked up their self-produced CD. It's
good but doesn't bring across the energy of their live show, of course,
and doesn't have the jazz covers, unless you count "Someday My Prince Will
Come," which sounds technically sound and truer to the standard than the
stuff they did live like that speedball version of Giant Steps. If
interested, they've got a web site with audio clips at:

http://www.gate.net/~vvbatboy/album.html

The site has a calendar of club dates but that only goes to the 15th of
February. If you're in Florida or North Carolina, check those dates. Heard
some great sounds for a $5 cover and $10 CD. Screw the masses.

Also just read that TJ Kirk has been (was? I don't pay much attention to
these back-pounding dos) nominated for a grammy in the best contempary
jazz category (I hope I got that right.) Glad to see them getting this
well-deserved credit for an excellent album.

bil
bdwyer@grove.ufl.edu