Pop & Jazz Reviews : Masterful Set From an Acoustic Mike Garson

The trio presented Tuesday by pianist Mike Garson at Le Cafe in Sherman Oaks was the same group heard in his recent album, playing the same tunes, in a welcome display of acoustic jazz.

This was of particular interest for admirers of Stanley Clarke, who have seen him go through rock and funk phases, with Keith Richards and George Duke among others. They can rest assured that he remains a prodigious upright bass player when heard in a pure jazz setting. His delineation of the demanding theme on Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation,” in octave unison with Garson, and his flying-fingers solo on the same tune, were evidence enough of his undimmed mastery.

Garson, too, was in spirited form when the material was suited to him. His best moments were an opening blues, dedicated to his early idol, the late Wynton Kelly. “Song for Susan,” an original named for his wife, and “Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise,” which he played boldly, as in an evening rainstorm.

Garson is a powerful and gifted performer who needs to rein in his tendency to overstate. On some of his own works, among them “Song of the Soul” and “Admiration,” his impressionistic side, as well as passages of somewhat excessive melodrama, came to the fore, abetted at times by the forceful drumming of Jimmy Paxson.