Jazz keyboardist Michael Kocour, who has played his share of piano trio and organ combo gigs while living in Chicago and teaching at Northwestern University, has moved to direct the music program at Arizona State University. His first project in Arizona pays tribute to the two seminal figures of bop -- Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk. Kocour is clearly a facile, talented, and dynamic musician, able to spin off witty phrases at will, and capable of playing the language of Powell and Monk note for note. His takes on Powell are very impressive, especially his read of the tricky changes of "Un Poco Loco," and the bright inventions on "Oblivion." He offers a calmer reading with stride inflections for the usually frantic "Parisian Thoroughfare," and does a solo version of the much lesser known "Dusk in Sandi" parallel to "Midnight Sun." Powell's harmonic style remains unmatched, yet Kocour is able to harness and channel it. Of the Monk pieces, he does "Think of One" in a funky juggernaut manner, slightly interprets "Wail," nails a cool calypso rhythm onto "Bye-Ya," and does a solo-to-trio treatment of "Pannonica/Epistrophy." As Monk did, the ability to take a standard and make it your own is also Kocour's most endearing quality. Clearly a project he has wanted to do for some time, this recording shows the brilliance of an emerging voice in jazz whose time is coming soon.
© Michael G. Nastos /TiVo