Power of Three

Doors open at 19:00. It's recommended to arrive close to doors opening. The next show in our masterpiece albums series is dedicated to Michel Petrucciani's Power of Three - a one-time summit meeting between three jazz giants: Petrucciani on piano, Jim Hall on guitar, and Wayne Shorter on saxophone. The album was recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1986, at a time when the 23-year-old Petrucciani was already emerging as one of the most brilliant and distinctive pianists of his generation. A year earlier he had signed with Blue Note and become the first French artist ever signed to the legendary label. At Montreux he met Jim Hall, one of the founding fathers of modern jazz guitar, for an intimate dialogue between piano and guitar; on three of the tracks Wayne Shorter joins them, and the meeting becomes Power of Three. This is an album whose power lies precisely in what it doesn't have: no bass, no drums, and no safety net of a rhythm section. The three musicians constantly trade off the roles of melody, accompaniment and rhythm, listening and responding to one another in real time. Alongside original compositions by all three - including Shorter's Limbo, Petrucciani's Morning Blues, and Hall's Bimini - there's also a beautiful version of Duke Ellington's In a Sentimental Mood. There's a small story behind the name too: Petrucciani said it was Wayne Shorter, a science fiction fan, who suggested calling the album Power of Three, after a book he was reading at the time - a name that turned out to be especially fitting for an album whose whole essence is the power created by the meeting of three independent musical voices. Stepping into their shoes will be Gadi Stern on piano, Yuval Drabkin on saxophone, and Ron Magril on guitar. Just like the original lineup, here too there's no bass and no drums - just three musicians and the space created between them, in music where listening and dialogue matter no less than virtuosity. A renewed encounter with an album that turned one moment on a Montreux stage into a musical conversation that has stayed alive four decades later. Performers: Gadi Stern: piano, Yuval Drabkin: saxophone, Ron Magril: guitar.