# Live review from EU: Ethan Iverson trio at Jazzclub Bix Stuttgart: Full throttle from the start. Dramatic climaxes – Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2025/04/18/live-review-from-eu-ethan-iverson-trio-at-jazzclub-bix-stuttgart-full-throttle-from-the-start-dramatic-climaxes-photos/
- Published: 2025-04-18T00:03:54+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Dramatic climaxes: For Ethan Iverson, it has always been a challenge to combine
the contemporary jazz with a deep nod to the great masters of the past.**

But while the US pianist, with his former band The Bad Plus, tackled well-known 
and frequently quoted rock and pop classics, he presents his idols’ jazz standards
in a new guise during his performance with his new trio in the almost sold-out Stuttgart
jazz club Bix.

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.jazzreportagen.com/wp-content/uploads/Ethan_Iverson_Trio_8982__Rainer_Ortag.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

Ethan Iverson is best known as a founding member of the avant-garde jazz trio The
Bad Plus, which formed in 2000.

In recent years, he has also made a name for himself through his solo projects and
his new trio with Thomas Morgan (double bass) and Kendrick Scott (drums). During
their performance at the Bix Jazz Club, the three Americans aren’t afraid to deconstruct
well-known jazz standards by Wayne Shorter, Horace Silver, and Dizzy Gillespie, 
transforming them into their own musical cosmos.

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.jazzreportagen.com/wp-content/uploads/Ethan_Iverson_Trio_8928__Rainer_Ortag.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

With a multifaceted arrangement of rhythms and melody lines, they create an unorthodox
urban jazz with numerous solo attacks on traditional and familiar traditions.

Full throttle from the start: At first glance, the music of the 52-year-old pianist
from New York seems rather unspectacular, somewhat cold when reduced to a pure trio
form.

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.jazzreportagen.com/wp-content/uploads/Ethan_Iverson_Trio_8885__Rainer_Ortag.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

From the very beginning, Ethan Iverson goes full throttle into the first round, 
as if he’d already completed a half-hour warm-up. The audience is also given little
opportunity to warm up this evening. Much of it seems impulsive, but also incredibly
mature. A pronounced desire for form points the way.

He is concerned with the appropriation of history, which he defines very openly.
Kendrick Scott, in particular, impresses in this hour-and-a-half-long gig. The virtuosity
with which the drummer continually finds new ways of influencing the sound, from
striking the drumsticks to breaking the rhythm, is certainly spectacle-worthy, but
always remains true to the theme.

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.jazzreportagen.com/wp-content/uploads/Ethan_Iverson_Trio_9054__Rainer_Ortag.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

Although the sometimes freely constructed melodies sound a bit detached at times,
the evening as a whole has a form that subtly builds tension and reveals the songs’
unique characteristics.

There’s no doubt about it: this style of jazz has no expiration date, and despite
its reliance on tried-and-tested melodies, it doesn’t feel like a knockoff or even
a plagiarism.

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.jazzreportagen.com/wp-content/uploads/Ethan_Iverson_Trio_9027__Rainer_Ortag.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

However, the Ethan Iverson Trio doesn’t come close to the exciting and congenial
sessions of the exceptional trio The Bad Plus.

**Ethan Iverson** (p)
 **Thomas Morgan** (b) **Kendrick Scott** (dr)

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.jazzreportagen.com/wp-content/uploads/Ethan_Iverson_Trio_9063__Rainer_Ortag.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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