As we savor the season, WBGO looks back to a session from 2013, when the Ted Rosenthal Trio came in to share music from a new holiday album.
Rosenthal first turned heads winning the second Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition in 1988. On record, he has honored Bill Evans, Bud Powell and Beethoven; proved that there are constantly new images of Monk; took part in the outstanding Maybeck Solo Recital series; and majestically moved us with a trio performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
With his 2013 holiday album, Wonderland, Ted, bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Tim Horner play the holidays with their own spirit: the hard-swinging “Winter Wonderland,” a Bud Powell-influenced “Angels We Have Heard on High,” or a reimagined jazz take on Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Reed Flutes,” from the Nutcracker Suite. It’s a fresh-snow sleigh ride through the music that gives the season magic.
