-- Jeff Hamilton - drums
-- Lynn Seaton - bass
-- Larry Fuller - piano

One of the benefits of going back to school to study jazz: I saw and heard this trio this evening. Larry Fuller kicks bottom in the style of (to my ears) Oscar Peterson, with every note and phrase imbued with meaning and always precise ... except the one time when he muffed the tail end of a difficult phrase and shot me a grin and a wink where I was sitting in the front row directly in line with the keys, as if to say "I meant to do that."

1st set consisted of:

"Rhythm-a-ning"
"Old Devil Moon"
something Brazilian by Geraldo Perrera
"Hamilton House" (??)
"Well You Needn't"
??

Somebody told me the last tune of this set was "Ride the Bus" (?? by Basie?), but I'm not so sure: in any case Seaton sang and played a scat solo on it that brought the house to its feet as the first set ended. "Well You Needn't" began with the three players trading the first three (repeated) lines of the head from piano, bass, to drums. "Hamilton House" is an old Scottish tune which the trio gave a beautiful ballad treatment. Is this last one on CD? -- I mun hae it!

First song of second set was "Max," dedicated to a friend of Hamilton's. Third song was cleverly entitled "Time Passes On," and was a ballad dedicated to the memory of Hamilton's first drum teacher. I couldn't name the other tunes of the second set, except for "Night In Tunisia," which featured Hamilton alone on the drums -- I've never heard a drummer play so melodically. One of my fellow listeners commented "I could hear the form all the way through!" When he plays, especially on brushes, keep your eye on him, because it is like some sort of dance, or extended caress. But in the second set, as in the first, I was most impressed with Fuller's piano proficiency. On several of the tunes, Hamilton and Seaton laid out and let Fuller nail it down.

The final encore was a tune I recognised as Parker/Gillespie, but again I couldn't place (I need to develop my listening chops!).