Erwin Helfer Trio – Careless Love

The Crescent City may have Dr. John, but for a considerably longer time, the Windy City has had Erwin Helfer, a blues and boogie master whose obscurity masks the great esteem in which he is held by his fans and fellow musicians. With a series of fine albums for suburban Chicago label The Sirens, Helfer is chipping away at his cult status as he approaches his 70th birthday. Careless Love is the best of them in terms of its stylistic breadth and the easy elegance with which he connects those dots; among twofisted pianists, he is the most genial as well as the most crafty. The music is lifted by a largespirited sense of now, ranging from a reading of Hank Williams Jambalaya on which second-line rhythm meets Caribbean tinge, to a jaunty, staggering Just A Closer Walk With Thee, to a languorous, timelagging treatment of Thelonious Monks Blue Monk. Even when drummer Avreeayl Ra, who comes from the jazz avant garde, and mainstream jazz bassist John Whitfield arent quite on the same page as Helfer, his off-kilter overlapping figures, hammered accents and shrewd hesitations keep your ears pinned.