FOR YOUR GRAMMY® CONSIDERATION:
TOUCH by Bill O’Connell
Best Jazz Instrumental Album
FEATURING:
Bill O’Connell - Piano
Santi Debriano - Bass
Billy Hart - Drums
THE UNIT IS SUPER TIGHT AND IN SYNC ON ALL 11 TRACKS... THE ESSENCE OF THEIR COLLECTIVE URGENCY AND AGENCY IS EXCEEDINGLY BRIGHT.
THERE IS ONE OTHER SENS THAT SHOULD BE NOTED, AND THAT’S THE FEELING - AND IN THIS CONTEXT O’CONNEL AND HIS COHORT ARE DEFINITELY IN TOUCH
- HERB BOYD - DOWNBEAT
STREAMING LINKS
“O'Connell has such an intriguing piano style, full of strange phrases that are most striking on standards (...) mingling the brevity of Ahmad Jamal with the angularity of Thelonious Monk. Let's hope Touch is debut No 2: it would be a treat to hear more of the piano of Bill O'Connell.”
— Chris Pearson, The Times
“In an era where a lot of jazz focuses on pushing boundaries and sounding different, O’Connell and his trio remind us how three voices, deeply in sync, can create music that’s not only fresh and timeless but also great jazz.”
“The art of the piano trio has been tarnished in recent years by the limited scope of its possibilities. Still, when you get a guy like pianist-composer-arranger Bill O’Connell, who has played in the bands of Mongo Santamaria and then, for 30 years, with flautist Dave Valentin, right up to his 2017 death at 64, you just know his ‘Touch’ would be something special. And it is.”
“A lovely album full of sensitivity, excitement, rich harmonies and compositions, both standards and originals, that tug at the heart, the feet and the brain - particularly the brain as O’Connell gives you plenty to think about.”
“ ‘Touch’ reminds us that O’Connell is just as at capable leading a trio of bassist Santi DiBriano and drummer Billy Hart through a set of originals, standards, blues, ballads and even a Herbie Hancock classic. ”
“At a time when there is a misconception that the personal touch takes a backseat to extravagant approaches, veteran pianist O’Conell and his masterful accompanists on Touch demonstrate that a fresh and timeless recording can be made with an up-tempo approach, in styles that move rapidly from Salsa to Latin jazz to contemporary jazz.”
“Here is an album I will enjoy playing over and over again for years to come.”
“This is wonderful rhythmic interplay, and a good record.”
“A classy of being classy.”
LP label Side A
LP label Side A
Back Cover
TOUCH - Liner Notes by T.J. English, New York Times Best-selling author and jazz aficionado
In New York City, where jazz is a religion as well as a commercial venture, pianist and composer Bill O’Connell is known as a musician’s musician. He could be called the High Priest of Jazz Piano, except that O’Connell is much too humble for such grandiose declarations. Primarily, he speaks through his instrument in clean lines, harmonic brilliance, perfect tone, and melodies that tickle the heart and sear the soul. It’s all here on Touch, the album you hold in your hand.
For any musician, touch is a term that personifies facility and nuance with an instrument. For a pianist, touch literally defines the way the instrument is played. O’Connell’s touch runs the gamut from lyrical and sweet to bluesy and forceful. Or, as Bill – who is also an educator – puts it to his students, “Melody rules, but always with a strong sense of harmonic knowledge.”
This beautiful record is something different. Known for decades as an arranger, composer and bandleader for large ensembles, O’Connell has played with Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, and, most notably, as pianist and de-facto musical director for the band of Cuban conga-playing legend Mongo Santamaria. Consequently, the pianist emerged in the Latin jazz scene as a revered sideman and has parlayed that into gigs all around the globe with bands large and small. But even with sixteen albums recorded in his name over the years, O’Connell does something with Touch that he hasn’t done since his very first record in the late-1970s: he records with a trio.
“Santi Debriano [bass] and Billy Hart [drums] are musicians I have played with often over the years,” says O’Connell. “Our respect for each other is deep, and we have a familiarity with one another that made recording this album pure joy.”
With Touch, the opening tune composed by O’Connell, the entire piece is characterized by a soft touch from the three musicians, with Debriano supplying the first of many sterling solos on the album. Maiden Voyage, a seminal composition by Herbie Hancock, seems designed for O’Connell to showcase the full power and expressiveness of his instrument. The interplay between the trio unfolds in a sacred space. Around and Around is Bill’s composition, with a circular structure that starts out in 6/8 time then dramatically shifts to a double time swing. In the hands of these professionals, the transition is not only seamless but melodic. Cay-Man was written by O’Connell while on a trip the Cayman Islands. It begins with a piano intro that is almost classical in temperament, but then shifts into something different, a bluesy, island-influenced jaunt reminiscent of Horace Silver at his most rambunctious. The tune comes back to its formalized intro, but now looser and with a stronger groove.
O’Connell wrote the tune 85th Street as a tribute to his old neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. “I wanted [the composition] to have that New York City energy,” says the native-born New Yorker. Billy Hart dazzles on the drums, providing a rhythmic structure for the tune that is hypnotic and meditative. So Beautiful, So Sad, another O’Connell original, captures the pianist at his most lyrical, with a gorgeous melody that is melancholy, but in a beautiful way. Three Little Words is a familiar jazz melody, but O’Connell livens things with a sneaky quoting of Monk. Says Bill: “It took a while in my development to really hear Monk. I started out as a more lyrical player, but eventually everyone is seduced by Monk’s harmonic mastery.”
Bill O’Connell is a national treasure. He has shined so often, and for so long, in large ensemble settings that it is sublime to hear his piano playing in pared down fashion on this record. With Touch, the master pianist gets back to basics and reminds us all that he is still at the peak of his craft and one of the most brilliant interpreters of contemporary jazz in all its glory.
-- T.J. English, New York Times Best-selling author and jazz aficionado