CD Reviews

Kenny Werner

Lawn Chair Society | Blue Note

By JON GARELICK | May 8, 2007

3.5 Stars

Werner is probably best known as harmonica legend Toots Thielemans’s right-hand man, but Lawn Chair Society demonstrates his range as a pianist/composer and why he’s revered by fellow musicians. He stretches here from abstract funk to lyrical elegy, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s got trumpeter Dave Douglas and saxophonist Chris Potter in the front line. Bird-like chirping horns mix with electronics, fractured funk, and chromatic keyboard reveries on the playful “Lo’s Garden.” “Lawn Chairs (and Other Foreign Policy)” begins with a stately unison horn line before shifting into an electrified hypnotic groove circa Nefertiti-era Miles. “Uncovered Heart” is a lullaby set to a habanera rhythm. Even at his most far-reaching, Werner never loses a grip on groove, melody, and form; Scott Colley’s bass — lurching forward, falling back, settling into the pocket — is essential in that regard. The closing “Loss” and “Kothbiro” (the latter from the film The Constant Gardener) have a mournful cast (Werner’s 16-year-old daughter died in a car accident last year), but not without a final, affirmative dance rhythm. For Werner, refreshing the jazz language is a way of renewing the world.

Kenny Werner | Kresge Auditorium, 48 Mass Ave, Cambridge | May 11 at 8 pm | 617.253.2826.

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