E-Mail This Article to a Friend Home brews (continued)

STEVE KUHN THANKED the small, enthusiastic audience at Scullers a week ago last Wednesday for coming out because "I know what the competition is tonight." Then he addressed the sound man: "Todd, if you hear anything about the score, feel free to break in at any point."

It was typical of Kuhn’s dry humor. The 66-year-old pianist has long been a musician’s musician, having cut his teeth in bands with John Coltrane, Kenny Dorham, Stan Getz, and Art Farmer. In more recent years, he’s collaborated closely with Steve Swallow as well and accumulated a strong book of original compositions for his trio.

It was only slightly disappointing that he played none of those originals in his first set at Scullers. I say "slightly" because what he did play he and his trio (bassist Dave Finck and drummer Billy Drummond) played so well, standards like "There Is No Greater Love," "Like Someone in Love," and "Stella by Starlight." Some of the lesser-known pieces were Tadd Dameron’s "Super Jet," Swallow’s "Ladies in Mercedes," and Finck’s "New Valley."

Kuhn has an uncommon sense of touch that can bend the weight of a phrase, and he has the mastery of a pure legato line in which a whole string of eighth notes, each cleanly articulated, is exhaled as if in a single breath rather than being struck as individual sounds on a percussion instrument. And there’s his wit and his large frame of reference. "There Is No Greater Love" glanced by Peter and the Wolf and "I Get a Kick Out of You." He introduced "Like Someone in Love" by saying that the title was "very appropriate for today’s English" and later suggested the insertion of a comma after "Like." And he loves song forms, stretching them, anticipating their transitions. His comping chords behind Finck’s bowed bass solo on "Stella" was quietly orchestral. His motoric opening chords on "Ladies in Mercedes" conjured a cinematic street scene before he dug into the piece’s bossa-like groove.

Promises Kept (ECM) indulges his romantic side — 10 Kuhn originals orchestrated for his piano, Finck’s bass, and a string orchestra by Carlos Franzetti. The album is a kind of answer to 1966’s The October Suite (Impulse), in which Kuhn and his trio (bassist Ron Carter and drummer Marty Morell) improvised to pieces written, arranged, and conducted by Gary McFarland for chamber groups. The Suite (re-released in 2003 by Verve) has the advantage of bass-drums jazz swing and is worth searching out. It might be one of the finest "Third Stream" pieces out there. But Promises Kept ingratiates itself with its understated melancholy and Kuhn’s voice leading, which is of a piece with the orchestrations. Familiar at first, it continues to surprise on relistening.

SOMETIME IN THE MID ’90s, Either/Orchestra leader Russ Gershon received a tape from his friend Mark Sandman called Ethiopian Groove: The Golden ’70s. That tape led to three pieces on the band’s More Beautiful Than Death (Accurate, 2000) collectively called "The Ethiopian Suite" and, last January, an actual tour in Ethiopia. Now the E/Os are bringing it home, so to speak, when one of the prime movers of Ethiopian jazz and pop, multi-instrumentalist/composer Mulatu Astatké, joins the band at the Regent Theatre in Arlington this Wednesday. In Astatké’s music, you can hear elements of pop, R&B, and jazz. Pieces of his have been collected on the Ethiopiques series from Buda Musique, in which Astatké’s long, minor-keyed melody lines, undulating grooves, and rough unison ensembles sound like, well, the Either/Orchestra. Says Gershon via e-mail, "He really anticipated us by a few decades, and dare I say — influenced us through his influence on the whole modern music scene in Ethiopia."

The Jamie Baum Septet appears on Wednesday November 17 at the Regattabar in the Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett Street in Harvard Square; call (617) 661-5000. Mulatu Astatké plays with the Either/Orchestra this Wednesday, November 10, at 7:30 p.m. at the Regent Theatre, 7 Medford Street in Arlington; call (781) 646-4849.