Search - Trotter Trio, Stephen Sondheim :: Stephen Sondheim's Passion... in Jazz

Strange Marriage Produces Beautiful Offspring

John Connors | Succasunna, NJ | 06/15/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Passion in Jazz is the first in what has become a series of Sondheim in Jazz albums from the Terry Trotter Trio. When the album first came out, I was high on the cast recording of the original musical, so high, in fact, that I felt the need to get this CD, even though I doubted it would be worth more than a single hearing. It also seemed like such a strange score to give a jazz treatment to; even within just Sondheim's ouvre, there were others that had that jazzy sound - Company and Merrily We Roll Along, to name a few. And the score to Passion was full of dissonant melodies, with nary a toe tapper in the whole thing. Now, several years later, I find this is one of the few CD's I own that still gets regular play. Somehow, the almost chamber-opera-like score to Passion has translated into a very beautifuly melancholy jazz CD. Whether taking a sweeping but muted love song and turning it into a swinging opener (Happiness) or by letting solo piano barely change the basic structure of a beautiful song of hopeless love (Loving You), the piano, drums and bass of the Trotter Trio has made this score their own. I have used this CD as background music for dinners and for working, and it's gotten many compliments. Somewhat puzzingly, the subsequent Trotter Sondheim in Jazz CD's don't work nearly as well as this one does, especially the aforementioned, already-jazzy Company. For a surprising and beautiful change of pace, one can't go wromg with Passion in Jazz."