KENNY DREW JR: Passionata
Liner Notes by Howard Mandel

Passionata is pure jazz classicism. Homage is it's guiding principle, and reverie abounds.

Pianist Kenny Drew Jr., a heroic modern rhapsodist, leads a deeply melodic, rhythmically sublime trio through the perfumed night airs and mid-tempo grooves composed or favored by his late father Kenny Drew, the bebop pianist who helped make that style today's common jazz language world-wide. Drew Sr.'s muted lyricism his "dark beauty" as well as his witty, lighter moments are faithfully conveyed in his son's unhurried approach and detailed statements, his long-unfurling, precisely weighted lines and well-structured movements that nestle here and there in sinuous string charts by Bob Belden. Belden selected and conducted the ensemble of New York "downtown" musicians whose professional experience with edgy pop, jazz and new music results here in a seductive section blend and supple phrasing. Still, Passionata belongs to Drew the Younger. His mastery and maturity are ever in the fore.

This is, after all, 39-year-old Kenny Drew Jr.'s 11th recorded album as a leader. Yes, he's been featured in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Mingus Big Band, in combos with Stanley Turrentine, Steve Turre and Charnett Moffett, but one of his pre-eminent qualities is, it seems, self-sufficiency, which he may have developed, naturally enough, as Drew's dad left for Europe when he was two.

They didn't see each other for the next eight years; Kenny Jr. was raised by an aunt and his grandparents, as a youth pursuing classical piano studies. Then, during his teens, Kenny spent a couple summers with his father.

"He took an interest in what I was playing," fils says of his expatriate père, "and he showed me some things later when I was 18 and started to get into jazz. But not a lot of specifics mostly general concepts, his thoughts and observations about playing. There was one thing: he thought I used the pedal too much. Of course, I disagreed..."

Kenny knew and enjoyed his father's repertoire while he was growing up, but didn't try playing it until he began recording under his own name for the Japanese Jazz City label in '87.

"We have very different styles," he believes. "My father's biggest influences were Bud Powell and Art Tatum. If you hear them in my playing, thank you. But Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea have had more impact on me."

Perhaps so, yet all these pianists (the Drews included) share a heritage that partakes of both the virtuosic fluidity of western European tradition and the harmonic extrapolations/rhythm complexities following from Bird, Diz and Monk. Kenny Drew Jr. came to Passionata never having heard Charlie Parker with Strings, being far more conversant with such recent string-laden productions as Wynton Marsalis's Hot House Flowers. Yet the lessons of music need not be delivered directly they can linger, and pervade whatever music flows in their wake. The single note forays of Bud Powell and the extravagant ease of Art Tatum are as much a part of Kenny Drew Jr.'s inheritance as his dad's subtle touch and legacy of bittersweet romance.

"I don't usually play something unless I'm drawn to it," says Drew, "and whatever I do, I want to play it beautifully. It is true, however, that there is a special emotional connection for me when I play my father's tunes. Particularly 'Dark Beauty.' There's something about it that really gets to me, and when I play it on a gig people seem to like it. They always come up and talk to me about it." He sighs. "I can only say, I hope Dad would have liked this whole project."

Of course he would have. He would have marveled at the letter-perfect attentions of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Lewis Nash to his son's every creative nuance. He would have been impressed with Kenny's clear articulation and his utter independence of hands and thought, intrigued by his son's musical insights and imaginative leaps, proud of his taste and accomplishments. He would have been touched by the piquancy of the trio's interpretations and the serenity that the strings simply, cleanly emphasize the languid, peaceful aura which suffuses this album. The music would have spoken to him as it speaks to us, for it is, here and now and beyond, imbued with a special tenderness that issues from the open heart and bottomless soul. That is the feeling of Passionata.