Pianist Lynne Arriale’s trio delivered a sparkling performance at Ronnie Scott’s club last night. From bassist Geoff Gascoyne’s opening bass figure into their first number, Blondie’s ‘Call Me’, they established an immediate rapport with their audience who appreciated their faultless grooves, subtle reworkings of familiar songs and solos in which every note has a purpose. ‘Call Me’, with its bitter-sweet minor bluesy feel, showcased Gascoyne’s playing, which was simply stunning in the clarity of its ideas, its expressive quality and his great double bass sound. Arriale stretched out to great effect on her own ‘Crawfish and Gumbo’ with its exhilarating New Orleans groove. As soon as this finished she dropped the volume to a whisper and cut the tempo back with a four-note piano figure that led to a delicate reading of ‘Here Comes the Sun’ from the Beatles’ canon, with just the slightest reharmonisation to add a little tension. Drummer Guido May, like the coach driver from hell, drove the trio on a wickedly up-tempo and at times hair-raising journey through ‘A Night in Tunisia’, proving throughout that he was in perfect control, and encouraging his colleagues to enjoy the ride. Lynne Arriale is deservedly a regular visitor to the UK as hers is one of the most satisfying piano trios on the planet.

Towards the end of the set a dapper and cheery Benny Golson joined the trio on stage to entertain the Ronnie Scott’s audience with some fine tenor saxophone playing. This was squeezed in between a witty anecdote about the origins of the title of their first piece, his hard-bop classic ‘Along Came Betty’, and an account of practising as a teenager in his mother’s front room in Philadelphia together with his boyhood friend John Coltrane, to whose memory their set-closer ‘Mr PC’ was dedicated.

– Charles Alexander

For tickets to tonight’s show go to www.ronniescotts.co.uk

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