Bethany Pickens Trio - Cool Jazz on a Summer Day

By Venus Zarris

Experiencing someone’s artistic abstraction provides a window into an intimately personal aspect of their psyche, their emotional conscious and subconscious and their intellectual deviations. Perhaps no incarnation of this is more viscerally engaging than with jazz.

The brilliant Bethany Pickens Trio performed Friday, July 9, 2010 in the lovely outdoor courtyard of the Hyde Park Shopping Center. In so doing they transformed the common community gathering space into a living-breathing suspension of ethereal groove and transported the delighted listeners to places both delicate and dynamic. Such are the portholes that jazz creates and the Bethany Pickens Trio are beguiling conductors on the amazing rides of each musical journey they undertake.

Standards from masters such as Charlie Parker, Chick Corea and Thelonious Monk created splendid time traveling impressions but it was Pickens’ original compositions that delivered the most impressive and altered states. Her music bypasses the immediate perception of the moment and gently takes you away to thought-provoking atmospheres and attitudes. Her melodies are compelling. Her rhythms are hypnotic and her musical change-ups are viscerally seductive. Pickens’ music is perfect to share outside on a sunny day with the crowd, but you can just as easily imagine its impact on an intimate evening for two.

The remarkable dexterity of Joshua Ramos on the acoustic bass combined with the perfect syncopation of Verne Allison on the drums created a resplendent foundation for Pickens’ improvisational keyboard compositions. Finding yourself in the company of the world class musical mastery of the Bethany Pickens Trio results in a wonderful epiphany. That is, it is time to start listening to more jazz!

4 STARS

(*Bethany Pickens Trio will be performing next on August 5, 2010 at Millennium Park at 6:30pm.)

For more information, concert dates, to listen to her music and purchase a compact disc, go to …

BETHANY PICKENS - HOME OF WILLIE’S KID MUSIC

Bethany Pickens Trio images by Venus Zarris.

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