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Forty-five years after Bill Evans at the Vanguard, you’d think the possibilities of the mainstream piano trio had been exhausted. But Stetch — who here returns to the format after three solo albums — proves that there are as many ways to play in this familiar set-up as there are ways to paint a landscape or a still life. He sticks with the verities of chord changes and swing, the latter impelled with the help of bassist Sean Smith and drummer Rodney Green. He’s almost always songful, with verse-chorus structures that cry out for lyrics. So every piece has a hooky familiarity that the ear can trace; no matter how far afield the improvisations travel, you get that satisfying “unh” of recognition when you feel Stetch come to the end of the form and the top of the chorus. “Inuit Talk” builds on the chunky chords he says he heard as speech in documentaries about the “First Peoples of the North” when he was a Canadian elementary-school student, but it soon accelerates into fluid overdrive. “Chord-Free Gord” is a sly virtuoso display that’s not so much “out” as about being out. “Green Grove” sets its key shifts amid an easy-going waltz. And the “The Girl in the Hemp Shirt” reveals ambiguous inner voices in its love-song melody — another kind of personal space.JOHN STETCH TRIO | Tanglewood Jazz Festival, Lenox | September 1 | 6:30 pm | 888.266.1200
