Now This presents bassist Gary Peacock with his trio of pianist Marc Copland and drummer Joey Baron, and was issued in May 2015 in time for his 80th birthday. Peacock helped set the standard for the piano trio in the groups of Bill Evans, Paul Bley and Keith Jarrett. In this band the roles are evenly shared, which leaves plenty of space for the melodic invention of his bass playing. New versions of some of his best-known tunes sit beside recent pieces. According to ECM, it was his 40th appearance on the label. Born in 1935 in Burley, Idaho, he switched to bass in 1956 while stationed with the US Army in Germany.
The session took place in July 2014 at Rainbow Studio in Oslo, with Manfred Eicher producing and Jan Erik Kongshaug engineering. Peacock and Copland had moved in and out of each other's groups for about thirty years, often in duo, but this was their first collaborative work for ECM. Copland had appeared on the label once before, on John Abercrombie's 39 Steps, also with Baron, who had recorded for ECM since Bill Frisell's Lookout for Hope in 1987. Seven of the eleven tunes are Peacock's, two are Copland's, one is Baron's, and the trio also plays Scott LaFaro's Gloria's Step.
Several of the Peacock pieces have a long ECM history. Moor first appeared in 1970 on Paul Bley with Gary Peacock, the label's third album. Vignette opened Tales of Another in 1977, the first meeting of what became Jarrett's Standards trio. Gaia was previously recorded with Ralph Towner on Oracle. It has a hook that Kevin Whitehead compared to a pop song's, and Baron plays much of his solo on it with bare hands. Copland's Noh Blues stretches a blues framework to leave room for open soloing and interplay. Baron's Esprit de Muse opens with a measured bass statement before piano and drums enter.
In JazzTimes, where the album was an Editor's Pick, Thomas Conrad described Peacock's tunes as "spare, self-contained figures of mysterious expectancy" and called Baron "essential as a colorist". Reviewing it for NPR's Fresh Air, Whitehead praised the balance of introspection and drive. He also observed that "Joey Baron's a regular Monet with the brushes."
This is the CD edition, ECM 2428, first released in 2015.
