Pieranunzi, Johnson, Motian Trio

At first glance, Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi’s Vanguard debut seems like a veiled tribute to Bill Evans, especially since he’s written a well-regarded book about the late pianist and is filling out this trio with Marc Johnson, Evans’s last bassist, and Paul Motian, freewheeling drummer from Evans's classic ’60s trio. But Pieranunzi’s style, once unabashedly romantic, has moved a considerable distance from that of Evans since the ’80s, when Pieranunzi realized there were myriad other ways to infuse classical training into jazz piano while still swinging like mad.