Louis Durra Trio

Los Angeles-based jazz pianist Louis Durra clearly loves his job. It comes across in his vivid, generous playing, and listening to the trio he’s put together for the festival with two Scots—bassist Brian Shiel and drummer Doug Hough—is often just like eavesdropping on three old friends simply playing together for the joy of it.
But what makes his lunchtime set in the intimate Chambers Street Jazz Bar really stand out is the unusual material he puts through the Durra jazz treatment. He even warns us at the opening that the threesome will be covering “music a jazz trio has no business playing.” That means The White Stripes, KT Tunstall and more. Does it work? Brilliantly, and it’s the ideal vehicle for Durra’s laid-back, luminous playing.

He’s rich and resonant in Boards of Canada’s 'Chromakey dreamcoat', and the trio builds up quite a head of steam in a dense conclusion. They are soft and restrained in a gentle, Scottish-infused number by Sophie Bancroft, and in the post-minimalist 'Sixes and nines' by young electronica composer Birkwin Jersey, Durra is gently rippling with a nicely weighted touch on the keyboard.

His own memorial piece '9/11' sounds just like a Bach aria fractured through a 21st century prism, and the trio gives a reflective, appropriately respectful performance. They finish with a witty take on The White Stripes’ 'We’re going to be friends,' where Durra throws in all kinds of misleading harmonies to confuse the ear.
Never self-indulgent, but sometimes quite introspective, Louis Durra and his trio deliver a fine hour of unusual music.