feature photo: Vin Cin
When Jamie Saft, Steve Swallow and Bobby Previte convened to make trio music, the intent was to rethink the whole notion of the jazz threesome. The New Standard (2014) wasn’t just a lofty title, the pianist, bassist and drummer backed it up with music that, in this writer’s words “finds ways to put an edge into the prosaic piano (or organ) trio.” Then they followed that up with 2017’s Loneliness Road, where they had the audacity to add Iggy Pop as a vocalist, a gutsy collaboration that made much more sense than you think it would. Where would they go from there?
You Don’t Know The Life (January 25, 2019 by Rare Noise Records) finds Saft doing away with the piano entirely and sticking exclusively with vintage organs: Hammond, Whitehall and a Baldwin electric harpsichord. Though he can play piano at elite level, these rigs are right in Saft’s wheelhouse (The Spanish Donkey, to cite one example), but interacting with the likes of Swallow and Previte makes this a whole different ball game.
For one, Saft is dealing in instruments that can handle the bottom end, yet an electric bassist is doing that instead. But those bass pedals are no replacement for eminent Swallow. And Previte is a true original as well, especially for his “unique tonal approach to the drums,” as Saft succinctly put it.
Together they bring decades of sharp jazz sensibilities to the project even though the mission isn’t necessarily jazz, and that manifests itself no more so than when they take on jazz covers. They bring Bill Evans’ impressionistic modal piece “Re: Person I Knew” to an alien place without having to change the basic chord or rhythm structure; Previte effectively replaces cymbals with tambourine and Saft’s psychedelic, reverberating harpsichord gives the melody a haunting quality. The evergreen “Moonlight in Vermont” is undertaken in an archaic, almost Lawrence Welk fashion except that Previte is seditiously pushing back against the genial disposition. “Alfie” has been covered to death and it’s certainly recognizable here, but the loose and steady groove meted out by Previte and Swallow makes this version snap.
A couple of other covers go well outside the realm of popular choices. Roswell Rudd’s “Ode To A Green Frisbee” starts with a Previte tom-toms feature and then Saft offers up the main melody as single, simple lines, allowing Previte to retain the center stage. The title song is an obscure track from an obscure band, The Moving Sidewalks, only remembered for being Billy Gibbons’ pre-ZZ Top gig. Saft preserves the standout feature of the song, the cathedral organ sound of this 1968 psychedelic ballad, his lead lines mostly following the cadence of the lyrics.
Elsewhere, the group changes up their line of attack among their own songs. The dirge-y “Dark Squares” gets so nocturnal with Swallow’s walking bass and Previte’s cymbal-riding swing that together with Saft’s grizzled organ, it’s pitch black. “The Break of the Flat Land” is solemn, barely above a whisper, but Saft goes full-on Rod Argent for “The Cloak” with Previte keeping up and Swallow somehow finding the center of this swirling mass. The swinging “Stable Manifold” is the closest that the combo gets to Jimmy Smith but Saft isn’t content to settle too comfortably inside the groove, instead injecting zesty flourishes that grabs your attention but doesn’t go over the top.
The third segment of the Jamie Saft/Steve Swallow/Bobby Previte collaboration is also their third time trying out something new. What remains the same is the refreshing looseness they bring to this and the prior outings, just letting the magic come to them instead of forcing it. That — and not all those well-played organs — is what is most memorable about You Don’t Know The Life.
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