Rob Schneiderman has made a series of recordings for
Reservoir in addition to being a jazz educator and math professor (the latter career well after this 1992 session). With bassist
Rufus Reid and drummer
Ben Riley providing a veteran rhythm section, the pianist focuses on standards, including more than a few that had fallen by the wayside by the 1990s.
Schneiderman's exuberant take of
Vincent Young's showcases both
Reid and
Riley's tasty brushwork. The pianist opens
"So in Love" unaccompanied then switches gears into a breezy post-bop setting suggestive of the late
James Williams, who like
Reid and
Schneiderman both taught at William Patterson University. The leader's deliberate setting of
"I Should Care" emphasizes its melancholy mood, seasoned with his rich chord voicings. The leader adds a playful bop vamp in his waltzing treatment of
"Fly Me to the Moon." The South American ballad
"Disritmia" may not yet be a standard in North America, but
Schneiderman's sensuous arrangement help it fit right in with the bevy of decades-old standards on this fine date. ~ Ken Dryden
