2004 · Album
Junk Magic
Thirsty Ear Recordings · Released: 2004 · Personnel: Craig Taborn (piano), Aaron Stewart, Mat Maneri (viola), Dave King (drums)
Mat Maneri's Viola: The Odd Voice That Matters
Maneri's viola transforms what could have been straightforward piano jazz into something stranger and more alive.
Most piano trios don't need a viola. Mat Maneri's presence on Junk Magic (2004) is what makes this album worth your attention. He doesn't play melody or harmony in any conventional sense—he's there to create texture, to offer resistance, to make the piano sound less like itself. Taborn's keyboard work is precise and modern, but it can feel architectural, even cold. Maneri's viola softens that, warps it, gives it an organic quality that prevents the album from becoming too cerebral.
The title's accuracy, as The Penguin Guide to Jazz noted, captures something real: the album does resemble something beautiful and slightly forbidding created from remnants of throwaway culture. That description fits Maneri's approach perfectly. He's scavenging textures, layering them under and alongside what Taborn and Dave King (drums) are doing. Aaron Stewart rounds out the group, but it's Maneri who changes the equation most dramatically. Without him, this would be a solid contemporary jazz piano record. With him, it becomes something odder, more willing to sit in discomfort.
This isn't Taborn's major statement—that came elsewhere in his catalog—but it's a solid piece of work from the mid-2000s, valuable specifically because it lets a unconventional voice have real weight in the mix. If you're already following Taborn's work and want to hear him in a setting where he's not the only thing commanding attention, this one justifies the time.
