By Dave Cantor | Published April 2019
Huw Warren has a thing for Hermeto Pascoal—and Brazilian music in general.
As far back as 2009 on Hermeto + (Basho), the Welsh pianist has taken the time to arrange and record more than a dozen compositions by the bandleader. But on Everything In Between, the work’s been so firmly ensconced in a contemporary jazz context it’d be tough to pick out the provenance of each composition. “Loro,” though, briefly offers glints of the piece’s origins as a song penned by Egberto Gismonti.
Warren’s tempered trio has roots in Perfect Houseplants, a quartet founded during the early ’90s that the bandleader participated in with bassist Dudley Phillips, who ably plies electric bass during most of the program here. On “Vou Viviendo,” a tune plucked from the songbook of Brazilian composers Pixinguinha and Benedicto Lacerda, Phillips switches to acoustic, lending the workout a different kind of propulsion, something absent from other cuts here. The bandleader’s son, Zoot, on drums, shuffles behind the lustrous, light and lively keyboard flourishes the elder Warren summons, and ushers in the album closer, Pascoal’s “Musica Das Nuvens E Do Chão.” It’s a supremely funky conclusion to an otherwise pastoral trio recording.
