Book Of Intuition Kenny Barron Trio

• 1 Magic Dance 07:54
• 2 Bud Like 05:30
• 3 Cook's Bay 06:02
• 4 In The Slow Lane 06:34
• 5 Shuffle Boil 06:55
• 6 Light Blue 04:09
• 7 Lunacy 05:10
• 8 Dreams 05:59
• 9 Prayer 04:44
• 10 Nightfall 07:12
• Total Runtime 01:00:09

Info for Book Of Intuition

Kenny Barron is often called the “pianist’s pianist.” Elegant, sensitive and lyrical, Barron’s impeccable keyboard skills have made him a favorite of jazz fans everywhere for over forty years and forty albums. A native of Philadelphia, Barron was still a teenager when he first started working with many of the jazz greats, including Philly Joe Jones, Lee Morgan, Roy Haynes, and Dizzy Gillespie. In the ’80s, he co-founded the jazz super group Sphere, a tribute to Thelonious Monk. He also entered into a long association with saxophone legend Stan Getz while continuing to lead his own groups, often in the classic piano trio configuration. A 2010 NEA Jazz Master, his prodigious recording output has received nine Grammy award nominations over his illustrious career. It’s not for nothing that the Los Angeles Times calls Kenny Barron, “one of the top jazz pianists in the world.” Whether the musical mood is a smokey blues, a romantic ballad, a hot Latin groove, or a sultry swing number, the Kenny Barron Trio, featuring bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Johnathan Blake deftly navigates the creative realm of modern jazz improvisation with self-assured style and grace. Remarkably, while piano maestro Kenny Barron has recorded more than 40 albums as a leader and countless others as a valued sideman, he had never documented his impressive working trio of bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa, with him for 20 years, and drummer Johnathan Blake, onboard for the past 10 years.

That missing piece in Barron’s lengthy discography has been sublimely addressed with his new recording, Book of Intuition, a refined, elegant, lyrical and swinging affair of new and reimagined originals and a triad of covers, including two obscure Thelonious Monk compositions.

Kenny Barron, piano
Kiyoshi Kitagawa, bass
Johnathan Blake, drums

Kenny Barron
One of the most renowned, most lyrical pianists in jazz today, Barron was awarded the prestigious title of Jazz Master, in the class of 2010–an honor bestowed by the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a multiple-Grammy® Award-nominee, was honored with induction into the American Jazz Hall of Fame (2005), and received the MAC Lifetime Achievement Award (2005) and the Mid Atlantic Arts Living Legacy Award (2009). In 2009, Barron was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an esteemed honorary society and center for independent policy research.

While relishing the accolades, Barron reflects on his career as a world renown-artist as a work in progress. “I don’t think of myself necessarily as an innovator,” he says. “But what I have contributed to jazz is keeping a commitment to the honesty of the music. I never do anything that’s too slick, and I play what I feel. I believe in having fun, which took a long time to discover-to not take myself so seriously.”

As a composer, arranger and bandleader, Barron has spent close to six decades at the forefront of the jazz piano aristocracy. As a co-founder of the seminal quartet Sphere–featuring Charlie Rouse, Buster Williams and Ben Riley–he focused on the music of Theolonious Monk and original compositions inspired by the late visionary. An in-demand sideman in his early days on the jazz scene, performing with Dizzy Gillespie, Yusef Lateef, and his fruitful collaboration with Stan Getz, the Philadelphia native launched his solo career in 1973 with Sunset to Dawn, released by Muse Records. Not one to rest on his laurels, Barron continues to tour widely–and learning more as he goes.

Barron is already thinking of his next projects for Impulse. He notes that the sessions which bore fruit on Book of Intuition were recorded in a two-day span that yielded 20 pieces-more music for hopefully another album. He’s also thinking of perhaps putting together a quintet for his next Impulse date. “I feel like I’m still evolving, trying to grow,” he says. “As I get older, I find that I’m more willing to leave my comfort zone and take chances as an improviser.”

This album contains no booklet.