Trio 3, a collective project with Oliver Lake (saxophone), Reggie Workman (bass), and Andrew Cyrille (drums), had a long run. From 1992 all the way through 2016, the band toured regularly and recorded six projects as a trio, plus five more with added pianists. Lake has now retired from performance, but Workman and Cyrille have reimagined the previous unit as
Trio Imagination with acclaimed pianist David Virelles. Their first release is
Creative Inspirations, a generally calm affair offering a wide range of approaches.
Universal Sketches, for one example, begins with Workman’s inventive arco playing, followed by a switch to pizzicato to continue his solo. A careful Virelles enters with some left hand work, and Cyrille joins him with some spooky percussion work. The piece drifts to a close without any kind of resolution. Following close on its heels is Andrew Hill’s
Refuge, a gentle ballad with a rolling rhythm and tight interactions among the musicians, ending with a stirring drum solo. This piece is about as close as this unit ever gets to sounding like a conventional piano trio. The out-of-tempo
Space Dance feature spare piano ruminations and scary sounds from Workman’s bowed bass fiddle.
Unseen Mother II is an extremely quiet and slowly evolving piece by Virelles. The mutual close listening skills of the trio are apparent in this sadness-tinged performance.
Sometimes I Wonder is an elegantly crafted solo showcase for the inimitable Cyrille. Virelles’
Para Ti brings this album to a close with a simple melody and a gently floating feeling that feels like it could go on forever (and might have, as it fades at the end.) The trio recorded this music in the fabled Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, where Cyrille and Workman have each participated in numerous sessions over the last sixty years. In his first appearance on record, Workman was a member of the Gigi Gryce Quintet that recorded
Sayin’ Something for Prestige/New Jazz at the Van Gelder studio in March 1960. Cyrille’s first session in the room, and also his recorded debut, was
The Hawk Relaxes, a Coleman Hawkins date for Prestige/Moodsville in February 1961. So there’s a lot of history at play when this band gets to work, and the much-younger pianist Virelles was acutely aware of the legendary musicians who preceded him at the keyboard of the studio’s Steinway B.
Creative Inspirations is a subtly ingratiating session, the kind of album that will repay repeated listenings with fresh insights each time. Happily recommended.
Pi Recordings PI115; David Virelles (p) Reggie Workman (b, perc, water drum) Andrew Cyrille (d, perc) percussion); Englewood Cliffs, NJ, no dates specified; Unseen Mother/ Pétalo/ Universal Sketches/ Refuge/ Space Dance/ Neves/ Unseen Mother II/ Sometimes I Wonder/ Para Ti; 43:35. pirecordings.com
The
Kris Davis Trio features the adventurous pianist with Robert Hurst on bass and Johnathan Blake on drums. The trio’s latest release,
Lost In Geneva, features a half-dozen of Davis’ original tunes, a pair of group improvisations, one tune apiece from Hurst and Blake, and Davis’ arrangement of Morton Feldman’s
Nature Piece 5. The natural world seems to have provided the main inspiration for the music, which includes such titles as Hurst’s politely swinging
The Bluesy Bird in Bob’s Backyard, Davis’ insistent
The Deer Fly , and the collective improvisations
Mourning Dove and
Northern Flicker. Kris Davis started classical piano lessons at the age of six, but as she told Davis Adler in a 2014 interview “by the eighth grade I knew I wanted to be a jazz musician.” She moved from her native Calgary, Alberta to Toronto for study coupled with the practical experience of frequent nights on bandstands around town. Arriving in New York in 2001, she’s been very busy both as leader and sideperson. I hear the influences of Ran Blake, Andrew Hill, and Cecil Taylor in her boldly inventive approach to the piano. But I could be wildly wrong. After all, it’s not the typical jazz musician who adapts Morton Feldman’s music for a trio setting. Her compositions often develop in surprising ways, with abrupt shifts in tempo, volume and feeling. With such complex originals, experience really counts in selecting the bassist and drummer. Robert Hurst and Johnathan Blake have each logged hundreds of sessions over the years. Hurst’s recorded work dates back to 1983. While he often performs in the Wynton Marsalis and Branford Marsalis groups, his discography also includes dates with guitarists Dave Stryker and Mark Elf, pianist Robert Glasper, saxophonist Charles Lloyd, and Paul McCartney (!). His frankly beautiful playing here is one reason to listen closely to
Lost In Geneva. Drummer Blake’s first recordings came in 1996 and 1997, on pianist Norman Simmons’
The Heat And The Sweet. He joined the Mingus Big Band in 1999, and he’s been pretty busy since then with the likes of trumpeter Tom Harrell, pianist Kenny Barron, and the Black Art Jazz Collective.
Lost In Geneva is a deeply satisfying album, well worth your attention.
4166 Records; Kris Davis (p) Robert Hurst (b) Johnathan Blake (d); Mt. Vernon, NY, September 15, 2025; The Subtext/ Congestion Pricing/ Lost in Geneva/ Where Does That Tunnel Go?/ The Ballerina/ Mourning Dove/ The Bluesy Bird in Bob’s Backyard/ Nature Piece 5/ Clues/ The Deer Fly/ Northern Flicker; 54:30. krisdavis.bandcamp.com
The
Pierre Favre Trio teams the drummer with pianist Irène Schweizer and bassist George Mraz. With Mraz later replaced by Peter Kowald, the trio lasted for a few years. Until recently, the first documentation of the group was Santana, an FMP release recorded in October 1968. But it seems to be in the nature of tape archives to reveal some previously hidden history. So it is with
Bird Food, a half-hour of the band live in the studio in February 1968. The tape was unearthed by trombonist Samuel Blaser and Favre from the drummer’s personal collection of tapes. The music is powerful and free, with the energetic Favre leading the way and matching wits with the under-appreciated Schweizer while Mraz elegantly negotiates the space between them. The program begins with Ornette Coleman’s
Bird Food, followed by a trio of Schweizer originals: the atmospheric
Sound II, the uptempo
Hinten, and the brash stop-start rhythms of
The Attack.
Bird Food is a welcome slice of the past, and a reminder that European free jazz of the period had many ways to tell its stories.
SONGS 004CD; Irène Schweizer (p) George Mraz (b) Pierre Favre (d); Zurich, Switzerland, February 19, 1968; Bird Food/ Sounds II/ Hinten/ The Attack; 29:58. samuelblaser.bandcamp.com
The masterful pianist Tommy Flanagan made over 50 albums as a leader, and many more as a sideman with such luminaries as John Coltrane, Thad Jones, Kenny Burrell, J.J. Johnson, and Miles Davis. He was active from 1956 to 2001. In 1984, while on vacation in Ireland with his wife, he suggested to local star drummer John Wadham that he would be open to doing some playing. Wadham called bassist Lindsay Horner to round out the trio. Horner was just out of college, and by his own admission in the liner notes for Tommy Flanagan Trio’s Made In Dublin, was both palpably excited and a bit afraid. He needn’t have worried, as he sounds fine in this program of jazz classics and a few standards. The trio played an informal afternoon gig at Dublin’s National Concert Hall and recorded an album’s worth of material at RTE Studios in Dublin. Decades later, Horner can’t recall if the gig came before the studio session or after it. He does recall that there were no rehearsals for either event. In the end, it doesn’t really matter which came first, and jazz fans will be happy to have this music available. It’s another tale of a long-forgotten recording making it out into the world. Wadham passed away in 2003, and the tape was discovered in his archive, leading to this Livia Records release. Horner writes that Flanagan was “in a bluesy mood and wanted to keep things loose ...” With three gorgeous solo pieces joining the trio selections, Made In Dublin is a throughly enjoyable showcase for Tommy Flanagan, a pianist and “musician’s musician” whose elegant playing places him in the pantheon of jazz legends. Recommended? Of course!
Livia LRCD2603; Tommy Flanagan (p; piano solo on *) Lindsey Horner (b) John Wadham (d); Dublin, Ireland, August or September 1984; Relaxin’ at Camarillo/ Donna Lee/ The Way You Look Tonight*/ Straight, No Chaser/ Summertime/ A Child is Born*/ Blues in the Closet/ Lady Be Good*; 45:34. www.lirarecords.com
