Bill O'Connell - LYDIALIEBMAN.COM

Touch
Release date: January 17, 2025
Label: Jojo Records

Touch, the highly anticipated new album from GRAMMYⓇ nominated pianist, composer, and arranger Bill O’Connell. Touch finds O’Connell returning to the trio format for the first time since his debut album Searching in the late 1970s. Accompanied by longtime collaborators, bassist Santi Debriano and drummer Billy Hart, and recorded at the storied Rudy Van Gelder Studio, O’Connell crafts a rich and intimate musical experience that shines with his unmistakable artistry.

In a city where jazz is both a passion and a tradition, Bill O’Connell stands out as a true "musician’s musician." Known for his harmonic brilliance, clear phrasing, and evocative melodies, O’Connell’s playing resonates with depth, capturing a "touch" that lives up to the album’s title. For pianists, touch is a term that encompasses the nuance and skill with which they engage their instrument—a quality O’Connell brings to every track with finesse and emotional clarity.

O’Connell, who has made his mark as an arranger, composer, and bandleader in larger ensemble settings, delivers a new perspective on his talents through the trio format. Touch is a journey of contrast, from the lyrical sweetness of the title track to the driving swing of "Around and Around" and the island-infused groove of "Cay-Man." The trio navigates each piece with ease, blending precision and spontaneity into every note. “Our respect for each other is deep, and we have a familiarity that made recording this album pure joy,” says O’Connell of his lauded sidemen.

O’Connell and Debriano have been playing together for about a decade, after meeting at a jam session in Long Island, New York. Immediately, their chemistry was apparent, with their love for modern jazz and Latin music as common ground. Hart and O’Connell go back a bit longer - they first connected in the 1980s on a gig with the late vocalist Janet Lawson and have played together intermittently ever since. “I consider every time I play with Billy Hart to be a special occasion,” O’Connell proclaimed.

Highlights of Touch include O’Connell’s expressive interpretation of Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” where his powerful yet delicate touch on the keys shines through, and his own "85th Street," a tribute to his New York roots that pulses with city energy, anchored by Hart’s hypnotic rhythms. The contemplative “So Beautiful, So Sad” showcases O’Connell’s lyrical prowess, while “Three Little Words” incorporates a hint of Monk—a nod to the pianist’s deep admiration for Thelonious Monk’s harmonic genius. “It took a while in my development to really hear Monk. I started out as a more lyrical player, but eventually, everyone is seduced by Monk’s harmonic mastery,” he comments.

Bill O’Connell’s legacy in jazz spans over four decades, with a career that began with Mongo Santamaria’s Latin jazz band in 1977 and includes collaborations with jazz icons such as Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, and Gato Barbieri. His previous studio album, A Change is Gonna Come, a soulful response to social unrest, earned him accolades. In 2021, he received a GRAMMY® nomination for his Latin-inspired arrangement of “Chopsticks” on Richard Baratta’s Music in Film: The Reel Deal. With Touch, his seventeenth album as a leader, O’Connell demonstrates his versatility once again, bringing a master’s control and an explorer’s curiosity to the intimate, dynamic trio format.

Touch is a reminder of why Bill O’Connell is regarded as a national treasure in jazz, with a career defined by continual evolution, technical mastery, and a deep commitment to the music he loves. This new album is a testament to O’Connell’s enduring artistry and his unparalleled ability to connect with listeners on an emotional level.

A Change Is Gonna Come
Release date: January 28, 2022
Label: Savant Records

A Change is Gonna Come is the powerful new release from esteemed pianist, composer, arranger and newly-minted GRAMMYⓇ nominee Bill O’Connell. This particular moment in history is a fraught one; A Change Is Gonna Come brings that point home with impassioned music reacting to the rampant racial and political injustice and pandemic-fueled turmoil of the present moment. A Change is Gonna Come features O’Connell alongside bassist Lincoln Goines, drummer Steve Jordan, percussionist Pedrito Martinez, and special guest Craig Handy tenor and soprano saxophone.

Lauded for his boundless, uncompromising prowess in the realm of Latin jazz, O’Connell’s fruitful musical journey began in 1977 when O’Connell began his tenure as the keyboardist for the legendary Mongo Santamaria’s Latin jazz band. A departure from the clavé-driven Latin jazz pocket that so often permeates O’Connell’s work, the pianist is heard here displaying his remarkable facility in the straight-ahead jazz idiom. The release of A Change is Gonna Come comes as O’Connell is fresh off the heels of his thrilling GRAMMYⓇ nomination for ‘Best Arrangement (Instrumental or A Capella)’ for the song “Chopsticks” on Richard Barratta’s album Music in Film: The Reel Deal.

This impassioned release is intrinsically tied to the unique and trying times in which it was created. O’Connell remarks: “I look at recordings this way: each one is a snapshot of how I’m feeling at this particular time in my life… Each song reflects a different feeling at a particular moment.” The pianist and composer channels his frustration, anger and grief for the medical, racial, economic and political turmoil that plagues our country into electrifying compositions that feature the masterful interplay of this tightly-knit outfit of jazz notables.

It was while performing with Sonny Rollins that the pianist first crossed paths with renowned drummer Steve Jordan. “We had an immediate chemistry going, but it was short-lived—about a month. Ever since then we’ve been trying to get together on a project. I finally called him up and I said, ‘Steve, I think it’s time.’ So he was into it, and we finally got it together to do this, so I’m very pleased that he’s on the record,” O’Connell notes. Jordan, who recently joined The Rolling Stones in place of the late Charlie Watts, is the album’s co-producer.

A more frequent presence on O’Connell’s dates is bassist Lincoln Goines, with whom he spent some thirty-odd years in flutist Dave Valentin’s rhythm section—before he became the pianist’s go-to bassist. “Lincoln and I have a long musical relationship, and I can’t say enough about what he brings to my music,” he says. “I love what he does on both acoustic and electric bass.” Guest saxophonist Craig Handy puts rich veins of both adventure and soul into O’Connell’s compositions, A Change is Gonna Come is the third album of O’Connell’s that features Handy. The pair first worked together in trombonist Conrad Herwig’s Latin Side big band… which is where O’Connell first encountered Pedrito Martinez, the record’s other guest.

O’Connell stirs the grey-matter with thoughtful original compositions such as “A Prayer For Us”. The piece is a vulnerable, gospel-inspired number. “I didn’t write it out this way, but you could also think of it as ‘A Prayer for U.S.,’” O’Connell muses, looking back on episodes of turmoil that fell through his country like dominoes. His improvising on the tune’s gentle swing has a bittersweet cast; one isn’t sure whether to be sad or hopeful. Perhaps that’s appropriate, too. “Covid Blues” is a B-flat blues with a plaintive soprano line that captures the anxiety, the ennui, the claustrophobia we’ve all been cycling through. Yet in its playful three-way duel between O’Connell, Handy, and Jordan, it also has a glimmer of hope. “We have to remain optimistic in the crazy time we’re going through,” says O’Connell. “Sun For Sonny” is a tip-of-the-hat to the great Sonny Rollins who once employed each member of the trio. The calypso groove and “St. Thomas” quote in O’Connell’s melody was your answer. It’s also suitably (for a Rollins tribute) percussive—with Martinez returning and Goines switching to the electric bass—and suitably sunny and danceable. After Handy and O’Connell reinforce that feeling in their solos, Goines and Martinez double down on it with two rounds of upbeat funk.

“Moment’s Notice”, which opens the album, is filled with nuance, immediacy and harmonic intrigue. The group takes the classic piece into funk territory which O’Connell indicates is about not wasting valuable resources. “Steve Jordan is one of the greatest funk drummers on the earth. If I didn’t have him playing some funk in there, it’s almost a crime.” For their solos, however, O’Connell, Goines, and Jordan ease off the gas a bit; there’s still plenty of swing, but also plenty of space.” The Sam Cooke anthem for which this album is titled “A Change is Gonna Come” arrives in an arrangement that O’Connell first wrote years ago for Charles Fambrough. It’s charged with gospel but also a surprising delicacy: a vulnerable aspect that tempers the song’s built-in resolve. If anything, the issues the song grappled with 60 years ago have only intensified since. The pianist takes centerstage with a jubilant solo on “My Foolish Heart” which once again features Jordan’s brilliant funk drumming within a sublime arrangement by O’Connell.

As jazz journalist Michael J. West remarks in the album’s liner notes “It’s what artists do: process the darker aspects of our lives and world into something beautiful and worth holding on to. If it’s true that a change is gonna come, it will be all of us who will have to make it. But it will be the gifts of people like Bill O’Connell who shine their lights on the path to that change.”