Pianist Kenny Werner is known and appreciated by many musicians. Not only because he is a well-deserved neo-pop pianist and / or accompanist of Toots Thielemans, but because he wrote the book Effortless Mastery. In it he deals with a number of blockages that prevent almost all musicians from becoming a 'master musician' and gives methods to overcome them. You naturally expect the writer of such a
… work to have overcome those obstacles himself and he does not disappoint. At Lawn Chair Society he lays a solid foundation for his impressionistic and often funky compositions with bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade. Trumpeter Dave Douglas, saxophonist Chris Potter and Werner themselves play their fairly abstract solos on this. New to him is the use of electronics. That does not result in stomping nu jazz; the computer is mainly used as a mood maker and only occasionally delivers a dance beat. For this CD, Werner drew inspiration from the loss of his sixteen-year-old daughter in a car accident. That resulted in a beautiful but not too easy to listen album. (HB)more
