Larry Vuckovich Trio: High Wall
Larry Vuckovich Trio
High Wall: Real Life Film Noir (Tetrachord Music)
www.larryvuckovich.com
Rating: 
High Wall is billed as the follow-up to San Francisco pianist Larry Vuckovich’s entertaining 2006 CD, Street Scene. But perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Street Scene was the warm-up to this disc, which ranks among Vuckovich’s finest efforts.
In some fifty years as a key member of the local scene (not counting time spent in New York and Europe), Vuckovich has crafted a unique voice on his instrument, combining bebop drive with Latin rhythm, Balkan harmony, romantic intrigue and his own good-natured outlook on life. All of those elements come into play in High Wall, and find expression through an exceptional grouping of small combo arrangements: Vuckovich’s economically swinging piano receives perfectly-balanced support from bassists Larry Grenadier and Paul Keller, backed by drummers Eddie Marshall and Chuck McPherson, while Hector Lugo and Vince Delgado add extra percussive juice to several tracks.
The cuts with Grenadier and Marshall hit the highest marks, giving a rolling, tough-guy edge to the leader’s hip, self-explanatory “Afro 6/8 Minor Blues,” adding intriguing shadows to the bop theme “What’s This?” or turning the lovely “View from Telegraph Hill” into an elegant daydream, an evocation of past glamour. A quintet arrangement of Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez” (made familiar to jazz fans by Miles Davis and Gil Evans) also stands out: it’s an enchanting hybrid of classical, bop and flamenco strains rendered with depth and passion.
But the album’s most touching moment is Larry’s alone, in a gorgeous solo interpretation of “A Handful of Stars.” It’s the sort of honest, clear-eyed but ineffable performance that only an artist with many decades of life experience can create. But as the rest of the album makes clear, Larry Vuckovich still swings like a youngster.
Filed Under: CD Reviews
Sounds delightful. I love this man, he seems to keep getting younger.