Enrique Heredia - Enrique Heredia Trio plays Herbie Nichols (2024) [Hi-Res]

There are two ways to approach the musical universe of one of the Jazz greats. One of them (perhaps the most common) is to honor him through faithfulness to the work of the “honoree” with the best taste, technique and deliberate closeness to his musical work.

The other formula (which is the one offered by Enrique Heredia’s trio), is to squeeze the main and intrinsic essence out of the music in question, but allow its performers their own idiosyncrasies. It is clear Enrique Heredia Trio Plays Herbie Nichols knows how to touch the core and the spirit of the composer through their admirable technique and remarkable creative capacity.

It must necessarily be remembered that Herbie Nichols (and lovingly abusing the magnitude of his contribution) was regrettably one of those “cursed artists”, with an unfortunate and unstable career playing Dixieland and Rhythm and Blues and accompanying various singers in the bars of Greenwich Village for pure survival. During that same period hewas composing and writing in the solitude of his apartment a completely modern, outstanding and novel music that was nourished by bop and headed towards destinations yet to be discovered, including undefined forms of free jazz.

Nichols studied Monk ad nauseamand was one of his main disciples, but Nichols’ audacity, his harmonic richness, his elegant touch, that dissonant left hand, his surprising Bridges in all his compositions, (melodic creations that like Thelonious whisper a beautiful child like nature) plus his unexpected turns in the musical discourse make him one of the greats of contemporary piano. Unfortunately, the composer of that unforgettable Lady Sings the Blues died of leukemia at the age of 44.

The trio formed by Pere Soto on guitar, Xavi Castillo on double bass and Enrique Heredia on drums dive into the years of his best recordings for the Blue Note label between May 6, 1955 and April 19, 1956 where Nichols was accompanied on drums by geniuses like Art Blakey and Max Roach and bassists of the stature of Al McKibbon and Teddy Kotick.

The first thing that Pere, Xavi and Enrique transmit is the timelessness and contemporary quality of the work of Herbie Nichols. The Trio, Guitar-Bass-Drums, offers a very singular discourse throughout the whole recording, maintaining the substance of the master of the piano Herbie Nichols [...]

—Andreu Fàbregas Borràs