Eric Legnini: Trippin'

Belgian pianist Eric Legnini (who plays London's Pizza Express on February 10) is part of a jazz-funk piano lineage that goes back to Ramsey Lewis, so there are plenty of trill-packed licks on this album. The idiom dictates the rules, so on the funkier tracks Legnini mostly goes where you expect him to, but he does it with a relish and fluidity of phrasing that has plenty of charm, and drummer Franck Agulhon whips the group along with the spirited application of someone who hasn't heard it all before. Legnini's surging, McCoy Tyner persona on his fiercely swinging original Bleak Beauty opens up the broader span of his skills; Stevie Wonder's The Secret Life of Plants is is a tenderly spacious acoustic piano solo; Them That Got is a swaggering, foot-tapping trio blues with a tantalising melody twist; and Legnini's mix of scrupulous care and smooth fluency makes A Sleeping Bee more than worthy of its elevated position among piano-jazz standards.