Shai Maestro Trio – Untold Stories (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Shai Maestro Trio – Untold Stories (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 45:04 minutes | 427 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sound Surveyor

Shai Maestro became known as the pianist in Avishai Cohen’s trio: for four years he has continued his musical journey with his own trio and explores new territories between piano, bass and drums. ‘Israel is a big salad, a mixture of all possible cultures“, says Maestro, looking back to his homeland, today he lives in New York.

And that’s how his music sounds: it swings between harmonic jazz, classical structures and oriental folk motives. He has already enchanted Moods several times and now returns to present his new album, ‘Untold Stories’. This opus presents melodies with slender lines and delivers a profound and poetic universe. A tinted emergency jazz with an instant pop and an introspective rock with exploded lyricism.

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Shai Maestro Trio – The Stone Skipper (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Shai Maestro Trio – The Stone Skipper (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:57 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sound Surveyor Music

Avec The Stone Skipper, Shai Maestro et ses complices Jorge Roeder et Ziv Ravitz signent une pure merveille ! Se jouant des frontières de ce que l’on appelle communément le jazz, le trio du pianiste israélien n’hésite plus à s’aventurer sur des territoires autres, mariant les touches électroniques élégantes et l’apparition de voix en osmose avec son univers singulier. Depuis ses débuts en trio en 2011, la trajectoire musicale de ce bien nommé Maestro semble accompagner la recherche d’une humanité pleine et entière. Enregistré à Nilento au milieu de la campagne suédoise, The Stone Skipper, quatrième album de ce trio plus soudé que jamais, est construit comme un récit qui se déploie et s’appuie sur un motif musical central, fil rouge garant d’une unité scénaristique prégnante connectant les morceaux entre eux. « Cet album est, de loin, le plus personnel que nous ayons fait. Nous n’avons pas cherché à jouer les virtuoses sur nos instruments mais plutôt à se mettre au service de ce récit du mieux possible. » Un disque qui accueille quatre voix habitées et envoûtantes. Celles de Gretchen Parlato, Theo Bleckmann, Neli et Kalina Andreeva, comme quatre respirations, amples, qui ne prennent jamais le dessus sur le récit musical qui mélange instruments acoustiques et électroniques. A l’arrivée, avec un tel outil, Shai Maestro et ses complices viennent de franchir un nouveau cap, humain sans aucun doute, artistique assurément…

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Shai Maestro Trio – The Road To Ithaca (2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Shai Maestro Trio – The Road To Ithaca (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:02:14 minutes | 651 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Laborie Jazz

After five years with Avishai Cohen, Israeli pianist Shai Maestro struck out with his own trio – his eponymous first record was one of the bestselling jazz albums in France in 2012. Once again tightly linked in with the same team Jorge Roeder (double bass) and Ziv Ravitz (drums), Maestro offers a series of new compositions illustrating a rich and exciting musical universe.

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Shai Maestro Trio – Shai Maestro Trio (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Shai Maestro Trio – Shai Maestro Trio (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 56:44 minutes | 255 MB | Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Laborie Jazz

Israeli-born pianist Shai Maestro is familiar to UK audiences through his often thrilling work with bassist/composer Avishai Cohen. He’s now confirming that promise in his own group, with sometime Lee Konitz drummer Ziv Ravitz and Peruvian bassist Jorge Roeder, on an all-original repertoire except for the wistfully dignified traditional song Kalimankou Denkou. Cohen’s swaying, romantically intense and cinematic music is immediately evoked in the alternately rippling and thunderous Confession, while the jaunty Brave Ones sounds like a country-rock ballad (but develops with a catchily EST-like balance of freedom and certainty), and the meditative Painting is a reverie under which arco bass murmurs and intensifying cymbal splashes steadily swell. Maestro’s classical touch retains an expressive delicacy whatever the mood. Occasionally he restricts himself to fragmentary phrases inserted into remorseless drum-hooks and Roeder’s luxurious basslines, and The Flying Shepherd is a childlike dance that develops as a rhythm-stretching game. The Avishai Cohen dedication One for AC could have come straight out of the repertoire of this gifted young pianist’s famous mentor. Maestro’s solo career is going to be one to watch.

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Shai Maestro Trio – Human (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Shai Maestro Trio – Human (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 56:25 minutes | 987 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM

In 2018, Shai Maestro marked a milestone by joining the ECM team. After four albums animated by a certain grace that stamped his name on the contemporary jazz scene, the Israeli pianist, with excellent rhythmic accompaniment (the Peruvian Jorge Roeder on double bass and the Israeli Ofri Nehemya on drums) embarked once again on the path of vibrant stories-within-stories. Melodies inherited from the jazz repertoire but also from traditional oriental music or even Western classical music. Sources of inspiration like this great narrative tailwind are again summoned on Human, which was written with the same trio plus Philip Dizack, who brings a real personal touch. While taking care to digest the values of the trio, the American trumpeter brings this music closer to a certain classicism. It’s a heritage that the Maestro has always kept in his sights and that he celebrates here with Duke Ellington’s In a Sentimental Mood, the only cover on the album, or on Hank and Charlie, a tribute to Hank Jones and Charlie Haden. But it is the virtuosity – which is never ostentatious – of these four that impresses throughout Human. An impressive technique (GG) is put to work on the melody of the delicate (Compassion) and poetic (The Thief’s Dream) themes on this record: themes all composed by the Maestro himself. – Marc Zisman

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Shai Maestro Trio – The Dream Thief (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Shai Maestro Trio – The Dream Thief (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 48:12 minutes | 838 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM

Following four albums that have helped established him on the contemporary jazz scene, Shai Maestro is taking a major step by combining with the ECM label. Still in a trio with his double bass accomplice Jorge Roeder and drummer Ofri Nehemya (who replaces regular Ziv Ravitz), the Israeli pianist is once again going down the path of sublime multi-layered narratives. The melodies are taken from jazz as well as Eastern traditional music, and even Western classical music. Whether he feels introspective (on Israeli Matti Caspi’s My Second Childhood) or overtly provocative (surprising interpretation of the classic These Foolish Things), he has kept his soft touch and refined musical language. Ever since 2012, when he released the first album with him as the frontman, his profoundly personal aesthetic has continued to impress. He possesses a strong narrative force and stays well wired into the times, like on the final composition What Else Needs To Happen?, in which Shai Maestro very subtly inserts the voice of Barack Obama giving a speech about gun control.  – Marc Zisman

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