JAZZ : Spotlight : For Productivity, Those 88 Keys Still Can’t Be Beat

The piano jazz recordings just keep coming. Young lions, old lions and everyone in between in a dizzying, virtually nonstop flow of albums. How can one instrument generate so much activity? In part, of course, because no other acoustic instrument has more potential for variation, with its capacity to provide melody, harmony and rhythm--individually and in combination. And the most fascinating aspect of even a randomly selected group of recordings is the frequency of surprise, the many unexpected variations in style, sound and attitude that different players can generate from the same instrument.

Take John Lewis, for example. It’s doubtful that anyone has ever described the 79-year-old bebop veteran and longtime musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet as a virtuosic technician. His forte, instead, has been clarity and directness, the capacity to extract the essence of a musical experience rather than to expound upon its every detail. With “Evolution” (*** 1/2, Atlantic), Lewis offers the opportunity to hear those qualities in the most transparent of musical settings--a solo piano recital. Hearing his thoughtful renderings of a group of standards and originals is like peering into the very heart of the music, the effect enhanced by the intimacy of the sound, which literally emerges from the interior of the piano, lightly layered with the soft background sound of Lewis’ parallel grunting.

Brad Mehldau has virtually been anointed as the next great successor to Bill Evans. But the association does not sit well with Mehldau, and he includes an expansive liner note essay in “Art of the Trio 4--Back at the Vanguard” (*** 1/2, Warner Bros.) resisting the comparison. Mehldau’s identification with Evans--for most jazz fans--has less to do with comparable styles than it does with the need to have someone fill the Evans role in the current jazz scene.

Comparisons aside, this recording is another impressive growth step in the work of an artist with an indefatigable creative drive. Recorded live in January at Manhattan’s Village Vanguard with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy, the program ranges from standards such as “All the Things You Are” and his own “Sehnsucht” (a German word for “yearning” or “nostalgia” somewhat comparable to the Portuguese saudade) to the unexpected “Exit Music (for a Film)” from the pop group Radiohead. Much of Mehldau’s playing sounds unusually driven, even in the slower tunes--propelled, one suspects, by what appears to be an urgent need to communicate the validity of his musical identity. If so, he can relax.

Canadian-born pianist Renee Rosnes has also begun--after nearly a decade on the jazz scene--to step out of the crowd. “Art & Soul” (***, Blue Note), an impressively far-ranging collection of performances, effectively certifies her capacity to pick good material and deliver it in imaginative fashion. She is, for example, hard-swinging on Ornette Coleman’s offbeat “Blues Connotation,” then finds unexpected rhapsodic qualities in Lennon & McCartney’s “With a Little Help From My Friends.” On Duke Ellington’s “Fleurette Africaine” Rosnes enhances the sound of her trio with the addition of Richard Bona’s kalimba (thumb piano), adds singer Dianne Reeves for a pair of numbers, and concludes the album with a lighthearted romp through Bartok’s “Children’s Song No. 3.” Perhaps best of all, there is a spontaneously done, poignant rendering of Gordon Jenkins’ haunting “Goodbye.”

Antonio Farao is not a name that will ring many bells with American jazz fans. But the 33-year-old Italian pianist is an extraordinary player, one who deserves far wider attention, even though he already has performed with John Abercrombie, Lee Konitz and Branford Marsalis, among many others. On “Black Inside” (***, Blue Note) he works in a pure trio setting with bassist Ira Coleman and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts. And his highly personalized ability to combine the seemingly disparate elements of pure, straight-ahead swing and a kind of Mediterranean lyricism become clear from the very first track. Occasional traces of McCoy Tyner drift through his soloing, especially in the percussive touch of his up-tempos, but Farao also has a feel for subtle timbres as well.