(Post Bop, Modern Creative) [CD] Shai Maestro - The Dream Thief - 2018, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Shai Maestro
piano
Jorge Roeder
bass
Ofri Nehemya
drums

Having cut his teeth with bassist Avishai Cohen, Israeli pianist Shai Maestro has forged a small but perfectly formed discography of his own. Now, with the prodigious young Ofri Nehemya replacing Ziv Ravitz on drums, his trio makes its ECM debut. The album features a range of styles, from lilting solo pieces to full-on wig-outs. The solo "My Second Childhood" opens the album with a Middle Eastern motif, its fluttering phrases bringing a melancholy tone; the later "Choral" has a light, pleasing melody with an unplaceable "world music" feel. Maestro's independence is truly remarkable; it really sounds at times as if there are two people at the piano, as he plays in different meters with each hand. "The Forgotten Village" is restrained, super-smooth, almost lounge, with the three playing off each other expertly; Nehemya brings an offbeat rhythm with subtle rimshot clicks as Roeder lays down an amazingly rubbery bass solo. "A Moon's Tale" has an appropriately nocturnal quality, as silvery fingers of Debussy-esque solo piano swell into a middle section of almost gothic horror. The lilting "Lifeline" has one of the album's most beautiful melodies, lush, romantic, and faintly bittersweet, with wonderfully satisfying harmonic resolutions. The funky, syncopated "New River, New Water" seems largely freely improvised; there's a real telepathic interplay between the players, the energy palpable as the music rises to a frantic crescendo, with their excited shouts captured on the mike. The standout title track is the major showcase of the trio's chops -- starting out louche and filmic, it shifts gear about a third of the way through and lifts off with brisk, swinging cymbals and a rolling, roiling piano part before the trio bursts into life, Nehemya all over his kit, Roeder mirroring the piano as Maestro unleashes a torrent of notes. "What Else Needs to Happen" closes the album on a somber note, becoming darker and more atonal as it progresses, with the piano and the bass both seeming to go out of tune. It features an overdubbed speech by Barack Obama calling for gun control, which is an important message but seems jarring and out of place, and takes the listener out of the music. But that's the only misstep here. Maestro's pianism is remarkable, deftly and concisely expressing deep reserves of emotion with an impressive lightness of touch; it's never too far out, always melodic enough to be accessible but never staid or predictable. As ever, the whole is lovingly produced by Manfred Eicher in his trademark bright and open way, every note clear and crisp, the tone perfectly balanced. This is an impressive addition to Maestro's oeuvre and, one hopes, the beginning of a fruitful relationship with ECM.

Exact Audio Copy V1.3 from 2. September 2016
EAC extraction logfile from 6. January 2019, 23:24
Shai Maestro / The Dream Thief
Used drive  : hp      CDDVDW SN-208BB   Adapter: 1  ID: 0
Read mode               : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache      : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction                      : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes
Used interface                              : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling                                : Appended to previous track
Used output format              : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate                : 768 kBit/s
Quality                         : High
Add ID3 tag                     : No
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        9  | 41:16.30 |  6:55.60 |    185730    |   216914
Track  1
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Track  2
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Track  3
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Track  4
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Track  5
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Track  6
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Track  7
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Track  8
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Track  9
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==== Log checksum FCB5986BACFC5ABDD4142679C2D243908510194BA7EF397D44FA74F857234685 ====

REM GENRE Jazz
REM DATE 2018
REM DISCID 780B4C09
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v1.3"
CATALOG 0602567711124
PERFORMER "Shai Maestro"
TITLE "The Dream Thief"
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FILE "01 - My Second Childhood.wav" WAVE
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FILE "02 - The Forgotten Village.wav" WAVE
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FILE "03 - The Dream Thief.wav" WAVE
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FILE "04 - A Moon's Tale.wav" WAVE
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