Barcelona Jazz Fest Review: Yonathan Avishai Trio

Yonathan Avishai is unafraid of a pretty melody. This is a rare trait in a modern jazz pianist: while many prefer to explore the furiously free avant-garde or to create raucous rhythmic riots, Avishai (who, I’m sure, could do either of those if he so pleased) seems most at home with a tune that lilts, a melody that swings, a simplicity that lets each song speak for itself. 

Avishai, an Israeli-born France-based pianist and composer with six records and multiple colabs to his name, brought this minimal, melody-obsessed aesthetic in full to his performance at Conservatori del Liceu on November 11 as part of the Barcelona Jazz Festival. The solo encore, a stripped down cover version of Stevie Wonder’s 1976 ode to Duke Ellington, “Sir Duke,” was the finest example. 

You’d be excused for thinking Avishai’s “Sir Duke” was a composition of his own, such was the delicacy of the intro—a gauzy motif that removes Wonder’s brashness to get to the core of the song’s harmony. It sounded like Avishai was breaking the tune down into its base elements to demonstrate to the crowd why Wonder’s hit sticks in the brain every time you hear it, and given he had only that day given a jazz masterclass to students of the Liceu, maybe he was.

The track features on his most recent record, Playing the Room, which came out on ECM Records this September, but it was his other 2019 album recorded with his trio, Joys and Solitudes (he’s been busy,) that made up the majority of the set. The opening number, another cover, this time by the Duke himself, was as memorable as the ending. “Mood Indigo” is a song which I would normally spot from a mile off—so lush are those opening chords: not quite blue, not quite purple—but the way Avishai deconstructed it kept the reference at the tip of my tongue, until it was revealed with that gorgeous, famous melody.

When you treat melodies with the respect that Avishai does, the last thing you want is an overzealous rhythm section. In bassist Yoni Zelnik and drummer Donald Kontomanou, Avishai has found players adept to his style, musicians who also understand that simplicity, crispness and a less-is-more attitude is what makes this kind of small group jazz so very good. 

I realize it’s a little remiss of me not to have acknowledged the rest of the trio until this point, especially given their playing was equally as stellar as the pianist’s. Kontmanou in particular was astounding in his rhythmic clarity, more than once holding my gaze for an entire track as he crafted some of the lightest, most intricate backings I’ve ever seen. He is one of those drummers for whom the kit seems merely an extension of the body; who is so well acquainted with his instrument that every centimeter of cymbal and skin has the potential of a different timbre; who considers the weight and purpose of each tap for what feels like a lifetime; jazz in slow motion.

Zelnik’s work on bass was lucid too. You could see how much pleasure he took in scampering around the upper register of his bass anytime he was called upon to solo, trickster’s grin plastered on. The trio was also joined for a couple of tracks by French tenor saxophonist and previous Avishai collaborator, Christophe Panzani. Tentative at first, Panzani really grew into his role while battling to keep his horn as subtle as the rest of the band, culminating with some fine melodic work on the memorable “Shir Bokr” (“Morning Song” in Hebrew—Avishai’s titles are as sweet as his playing.)

Sometimes the kind of subtlety I’ve described comes at the cost of sounding austere or staid, but this absolutely wasn’t the case here. There was something impressionistic about the sound: I definitely heard a Debussy cakewalk in “Les Pianos de Brazzaville,” and the Ellington cover had more than a small nod to that French school in its darting runs and agonizingly sustained resolutions. When music is this direct, this meticulous, with that late romantic emotiveness, it comes together in the spectre of some delicate, gossamer thing that could slip through your hands like smoke if you didn’t take care to grasp it. 

However, such high brow comparisons probably miss the point of Avishai’s playing. Yes, there is a specificity to his sound which verges on the classical, but there was a wittiness there too, especially on the final song before the encore, “Lya.” This began with a contained, jaunty motif—a childish ditty accompanied by the simplest of basslines and intricate percussion. And that’s where it remained: chirping, staccato, never straying from the same few chords and neither losing interest, before ending all of a sudden on a chuckling plonk, plonk. 

To end your set like that shows a musician who doesn’t take themselves too seriously—one of the easiest ways to endear yourself to a crowd. Avishai seems to find a simple melody he likes, forms it in the palm of his hand, lightly pulls it in all the right directions and places it carefully back down precisely where he found it, tongue in his cheek all the while. It was ultra-fine music, fabergé tunes, Mehldau in miniature. As you can probably tell, I thought it was utterly delightful.

You can buy tickets for the Barcelona Jazz Festival through the website at jazz.barcelona. Look out for more of our reviews of this year’s festival coming up soon.

Harry Stott is a regular contributor to the Barcelona Metropolitan covering Brexit, local political and social issues as well as the music scene. He recently received a B.A. in music from the University of Leeds, and now writes and produces radio content for a number of organizations in Barcelona and beyond. You can read more of Harry's articles here.