By Bill Milkowski | Published August 2022
While releasing four slamming projects with his dynamic Dr. Um Band, drummer Peter Erskine has maintained a strictly acoustic trio with pianist Alan Pasqua. Their initial two releases on Erskine’s Fuzzy Music label, 2000’s Live At Rocco and 2002’s Badlands, featured West Coast bass great Dave Carpenter, who died in 2008. Darek Oles came onboard with 2007’s Standards and further established his chemistry with Pasqua and Erskine on 2010’s The Interlochen Concert, 2010’s Standards, Vol. 2 and 2019’s 3 Nights In L.A. Their latest highly empathetic outing finds them going even deeper.
Recorded at the end of a two-week tour abroad in November 2021, Live In Italy opens with Pasqua’s introspective, three-minute solo-piano intro to his “Agrodolce” before Oles and Erskine enter, walking on eggshells on this melancholic gem. Pasqua also penned the lilting “New Hope” and the medium-
tempo swinger “Old Blues,” the latter featuring some hip melodic fills from Erskine, whose own sparsely exquisite “Three-Quarter Molly” culminates in some masterful storytelling on the kit. Oles, a superb soloist, contributes two compositions in the shimmering “Snowglobe” and the uptempo swinger “The Honeymoon,” which finds Pasqua in full-on burn mode and also features some boppish trading between bassist and drummer.
Elsewhere, they take their time on a gorgeous reading of Django Reinhardt’s “Nuages,” turn in an entrancing polyrhythmic rendition of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Con Alma” and pay tribute to Chick Corea on Pasqua’s briskly swinging homage “Dear Chick.”
Live In Italy: Agrodolce; New Hope; Old School Blues; Nuages; Three-Quarter Molly; Turnaround; Con Alma; Snowglobe; The Honeymoon; Dear Chick. (69:00)
Personnel: Peter Erskine, drums; Alan Pasqua, piano; Darek Oles, bass.
Ordering Info: petererskine.com
