Misha Mengelberg - Senne Sing Song (2005)

This 70th birthday tribute to Dutch pianist Misha Mengelberg opens with a track that appeared on the first album that he appeared on back in 1964, Eric Dolphy's Last Date (there it was entitled "Hypo Xmas Tree Fuzz"). The affectionate twiddle he inserts into the theme here is like a conniving wink to an old friend. On Senne Sing Song, his third John Zorn-produced trio album after 1994's Who's Bridge (Avant) and 1997's No Idea (DIW), Mengelberg is joined by the remarkably responsive rhythm team of bassist Greg Cohen and drummer Ben Perowsky. Several Mengelberg "standards" appear ("Reef und Kneebus," "Brozziman"), plodding amiably along at the pianist's by-now-familiar if slightly stodgy mid-tempo. The element of surprise comes from the pianist's unerring ability to find and follow the right wrong notes; Mengelberg's music remains a quintessential example of how recognizable idioms -- from Baroque counterpoint to the Duke-ish left-hand thunks and Monk-ish whole-tone runs -- can be extended (and subverted) into something both musically profound and profoundly musical. © Dan Warburton