How do you improve a tremendous piano trio? Add Joe Lovano. For their new album of acoustic, original music, the husband-and-wife team of bassist Marc Johnson and pianist Eliane Elias recruited the agile drummer Joey Baron. The trio recordings included here are so strong that it’s clear the musicians could have crafted an entire album in that setting and gotten great results. But the addition of Lovano’s saxophone takes a song like Elias’ “Moments” to another level, thanks to his gorgeous tone and empathetic interaction with the pianist.

BY BOBBY REED

Jazztimes

Not halfway into the first track, Swept Away resonates as a perfectly suitable title for this event, Marc Johnson’s first ECM album since 2005’s Shades of Jade. This time around, he shares the bill with one of today’s truly great pianists, Eliane Elias, a key collaborator for many years, and a musical companion who also happens to be his wife. They’ve been together for 20 years, though Elias expresses the relationship could actually be valued at 85 years when accounting for the amount of time spent working side by side, traveling, and being married. Both individuals exuded greatness from the moment they broke ground on their respective career foundations – Elias with Steps Ahead, and Johnson making history with the Bill Evans trio. What thrives as a vibrant and hedonistic partnership continues to speak volumes about the current project, much of which was conceived in the beauty of their New York home in the Hamptons.

All About Jazz

Swept Away is certainly a collaborative effort—co-led by Eliane Elias and bassist Marc Johnson—but it seems more like the pianist’s set. The Sao Paolo-born pianist penned five of the disc’s eleven tunes, and co-wrote two more with her musical/life partner, Johnson. The duo, in league with drummer Joey Baron and, on five tunes, saxophonist Joe Lovano, has produced the most sumptuous music imaginable, beginning with the Elias-penned title tune—a floating trio effort, a sensual haiku to unadorned beauty.

The Jazz Breakfast

Double bassist Marc Johnson, from the US’s mid-west, was in Bill Evans last trio; pianist Eliane Elias, from Sao Paulo in Brazil, first came to wide attention in Steps Ahead. They have been a couple for a long time now, and the near-telepathic interchange of the bass and piano throughout this album, their rising and falling at one to heighten the tension of a phrase and then to release it, is a joy to hear.

The Guardian

Bassist Marc Johnson and pianist Eliane Elias sound so complete as a duo that you might think even one extra player would be too many. Then, after the first number, in come the discreet Joey Baron on drums and that matchlessly inventive tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and it all sounds – not better so much as deeper, more resonant.

Eliane will be performaing at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley in Seattle from October 25 to 28.  If you are in the area don’t miss her exciting performance.

Here are some highlights:

“Simultaneously powerful and fragile, Elias played with joy and fervor, and her group was not far behind in power. Leaning on her piano, chords throwing in ‘staccato’, as in Dorival Caymmi Rosa Morena (version she did ‘Rosa blonde’) tearing to dance while singing. Who can sing a song while dancing wasting sexy sensuality, and then sit at the piano and play a solo that would rival McCoy Tyner? Elias could be the best example of the music of Brazilian jazz.” ~San Javier Jazz Festival/laopiniondemurcia.es

“The Eliane Elias Quartet’s Jobim-tribute was carried by the interaction between the musicians on the stage, their connection with the audience, empathy, the generous and joyous play, as well as the audience’s presence and their spontaneous applause. Eliane Elias did not only play and sing with sincere joy, but she also happily involved her audience generously with her own musical (hi)story and especially the history she shares with Jobim.” ~ Copenhagen Jazzfestival / Gaffa

“Bossa nova does not get much more beautiful than when Eliane Elias sits at the piano or holds the microphone…” ~ Copenhagen Jazz Festival / Politiken

“Who else can sing a sexy song, dance a sexy dance, and then sit down at the piano and play a solo to rival McCoy Tyner?” ~ Rochester Jazz Festival / City Newspaper.

Rochester City News

Eliane Elias wowed the crowd at Kilbourn Hall Wednesday night in a show filled with sambas and bossa novas from her native Brazil. For decades Elias has been known as a formidable pianist; in recent years her singing has become an equally important part of her music. She sang songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim and others in the original Portuguese. Only on “Call Me” and on the bridge in “The Girl From Ipanema” did she sing in English.

But there was no language barrier. She knew all of the songwriters personally and was very funny in her descriptions of their lyrics, especially when they related to sexy women. And speaking of sexy women, at the age of 52 Elias is blonde and beautiful. She was wearing a low-cut black dress and, at one point got up to dance while singing a song about a blonde dancing. Who else can sing a sexy song, dance a sexy dance, and then sit down at the piano and play a solo to rival McCoy Tyner?

Her band was excellent throughout, but only on the last tune did her bassist (and husband), Marc Johnson, and drummer, Rafael Barata, unleash fantastic solos. After a standing ovation, the group came back and played two more songs.

BY RON NETSKY