Bill O’Connell Shines at the Newly Spruced Zinc Bar

Bill O’Connell‘A Change is Gonna Come’ (Savant Records)Santi Debriano & Arkestra Bembe‘Ashanti’ (Jojo Records)Can it be that Manhattan’s West Third Street is the jazz capital of the world? First, a few feet down from Sixth Avenue, there’s the Blue Note, which celebrated its 40th anniversary two years ago. Heading east about a hundred yards, you come to the Zinc Bar, situated between Sullivan and Thompson streets. For about a dozen years at the end of the 20th century, there was also Visiones, on the corner of MacDougal Street.The Zinc Bar at 82 West 3rd was once Club Cinderella, which opened in 1939 and where, according to Greenwich Village lore, Thelonious Monk served as house pianist and Billie Holiday sang while Frank Sinatra listened enraptured in the front row. For 16 years, the original, smaller Zinc was two blocks south, at 90 West Houston St. Then, around 2008, the sibling partners Alex Kay and Kristina Kossi moved and expanded into the West 3rd Street space. I’ll admit that until recently, I always considered the Zinc a bit of a dive; whenever the lights came up, the furniture looked rather ragged and shopworn. As Stephen Wright says in the 1985 movie “Desperately Seeking Susan”: “I don’t think we’ll ever see Tony Bennett in a place like this.” Having not been there at least since the start of the pandemic, I was delighted to see that the furnishings have been thoroughly upgraded, and the place looks much more presentable — now you shouldn’t be ashamed to bring your wife, or even your mother.Certainly, from the beginning there’s been excellent music at the Zinc, where the producer and the promoter is Charles Carlini, who has inaugurated two long-running series themed around specific instruments. Mondays are for “Guitar Masters” and Tuesdays mean “Piano Jazz.” Both series are commendable for featuring impressive line-ups of musicians well beyond the usual suspects and headliners.Bill O’Connell held forth at the Tuesday piano spot this week. I’d heard him as a sideman, and on his many excellent albums, but never in person, leading his own trio. The Zinc show underscored what I already knew from the CDs: that he’s a fantastic player, a gifted composer, and leads a terrific trio with two celebrated sidemen, bassist Santi Debriano and drummer Billy Hart. Mr. O’Connell’s current album, “A Change Is Gonna Come,” is mostly a quartet project with saxophonist Craig Handy, bassist Lincoln Goines, and drummer Steve Jordan. The set is divided between familiar tunes and new originals, including a lovely treatment of the titular anthem by Sam Cooke, a melody too much overlooked by jazz instrumentalists. One can appreciate Mr. O’Connell’s dilemma here; the tenor saxophone is a natural choice to state this soulful melody, but I can readily understand his desire to play it himself. Thus, he splits the difference, and has Mr. Handy play an intro on tenor before he plays half a chorus on keyboard and lets Mr. Handy return for the second half. On the whole, it’s an intensely passionate performance, a powerful prayer for tenor saxophone and piano.“Change” is followed by an adorable original titled “Sun For Sunny,” which, despite the spelling, seems to be a dedication to Sonny Rollins and his flair for jazz calypsos — a format also neglected by virtually everyone else in jazz except native Caribbeans like Monty Alexander and, more recently, Etienne Charles and Russell Hall. “Sun for Sunny” features Mr. Handy on soprano, and starts with a few quotes from “St. Thomas,” which is another tip-off.I was hoping to hear both these pieces at the Zinc, but Mr. O’Connell launched the set with the announcement that he and the current trio were trying out a whole new program of music prior to recording a few days hence. With this particular trio, Mr. O’Connell made me think about the major pianists of the 1960s, like McCoy Tyner — particularly on the first piece, “Spa Glass,” a minor-key waltz with a particular kind of clipped rhythmic accent — as well as Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. The trio also gave us “War No More,” which shifted to 4/4 from 3/4 after the first chorus, and “Blues for Billy,” an effective showcase for the drummer in the most basic 12-bar blues form in C major. The trio ended the all-too-brief set with its only standard, Mr. Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” played mostly en clave and very fast, building to an exciting trade of fours between the three of them.Mr. Debriani, who was born in Panama in 1955, also has a new album out, “Ashanti,” and it’s an ambitious set of originals for a nine-piece ensemble known as Arkestra Bembe, consisting of five horns and four rhythm. I was expecting a Latin-leaning set, but “Ashanti” covers a wide range of contemporary styles. Even having said that, the track I’m going to play the most often is “Arkestra Boogaloo,” a funky tune with Latin underpinnings boasting excellent solos from flutist Andrea Brachfeld, who has a bright clean sound reminiscent of the late Dave Valentin, trumpeter Emile Turner, pianist Mamiko Watanabe, and TK Blue, whom I remember fondly from the bands of both Randy Weston and Little Jimmy Scott, on alto. I’m looking forward to further Tuesdays at the Zinc — January 17 it’s going to be the formidable David Hazeltine — and I plan to check out the guitars on Monday, as well as other groups on other nights. It’s not my last night on West 3rd Street, not by a long shot.

Bill O’Connell Shines at the Newly Spruced Zinc Bar

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