In 2018, there’s nothing new in jazz musicians presenting versions of post-Beatles pop tunes. You might even say it’s the new norm, but even before pianist Brad Mehldau’s Art of Trio Vol. 3, which is widely credited as giving younger, conservatory trained jazz musicians playing in the ‘jazz tradition’ the green light to draw on the forbidden fruits of pop culture with his thoughtful, intense covers of Radiohead’s ‘Exit Music (For a Film)’ and Nick Drake’s ‘River Man’ in 1998, Yuri Honing’s Trio had recorded Star Tracks in 1996 with covers of songs such as Björk’s ‘Isobel’, Abba’s ‘Waterloo’, Green Day’s ‘Basket Case’ and Sting’s ‘Walking on the Moon’ that effectively put him on the European jazz map. Three more albums with his trio plus extensive touring plus albums with Misha Mengelberg, Paul Bley, Wired Paradise – his electric jazz group – and jazz adaptations of Schubert’s lieder songs on the album Winterreise, cemented his position as one of Holland’s foremost jazz musicians. In 2009 he formed the Yuri Honing Acoustic Quartet and True (2012) and Desire (2016) followed. Goldbrun is his third album with this ensemble, which is shaping up to be an excellent context for his playing. For an artist who has demonstrated consistent signs of artistic growth and ambition throughout his career, this might be his best album yet. He’s cut away the flourishes and cliches of his youth by focusing on tone and respecting melodic content. There is assurance and maturity in his playing that becomes very apparent when comparing Goldbrun – an original seven-part suite – with, say, Star Tracks from 1996 or Alive from 2004. His playing on the former is characterised by confidence and authority – at 52 he has come of age as an artist. This is perhaps reflected in the album’s cover art, a reproduction of a front facial portrait of him by Mariecke van der Linden of an oil on canvas that does not shirk away from the birthmark on his right cheek. Back in 1996 I interviewed him over a coffee on the roof terrace of the old Congresgebouw in the Hague during the North Sea Jazz Festival. When we finished I asked him to pose for a photo, which he willingly did. However, he politely demurred from displaying his birthmark – my photo is from his left side. Maybe I’m wrong, but this CD makes a big personal statement. It seems to me that not only has one of Europe’s top jazz musicians found himself musically – as the late Mundell Lowe once said, “After you’ve lived a while you get all the crap out of your playing and you make music” – he has also found himself personally.