KENNY BARRON - 'Peruvian Blue'

Another of my recent Los Angeles digs, this is a surprisingly hard-to-find LP from pianist/ composer Kenny Barron who's released a boatload of superb hard-bop flavored albums throughout his long career. Barron's virtuosic Fender Rhodes and Clavinet work -- instruments he usually rarely played -- is mysterious, intensely spiritual and deeply funky on the 10-minute modal-monster title track. Another nearly 10-minute opus, "Two Areas", deftly mixes warm electric piano and Albert Heath's downtempo samba-tinged drumming into an undulating, subdued dance of shifting counterpoint and snaky Latin rhythm. Guitarist Ted Dunbar -- a co-conspirator with Barron on several LPs and a severely under-heralded jazz guitar genius-- also consistently shines here and adds spacious chordal textures and tangy solos everywhere he appears. On "Blue Monk", Barron even manages to re-vitalize the classic Thelonious Monk standard without having to deconstruct the tune, revealing a breathtaking technique and a lyrical understanding of Monk's seemingly angular style. Exhilarating, spiritual electric jazz.