Jazz Articles about Garage a Trois

Garage a Trois: Always Be Happy But Stay Evil

by Doug Collette
May 1, 2011

Once the most cerebral of groovemeisters, when guitarist Charlie Hunter collaborated with saxophonist Skerik, vibraphonist Mike Dillon and drummer Stanton Moore, Garage a Trois reinvented itself two years ago when keyboardist Marco Benevento took the guitarist's place, a process that now continues with Always Be Happy But Stay Evil. In contrast to the kamikaze attack of Power Patriot (Royal Potato Family, 2009), Garage a Trois begins this disc with the odd timbre of one of Benevento's synthesiszer-like keyboards, ...

Garage A Trois: Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil

by Chris May
April 15, 2011

Garage A TroisAlways Be Happy, But Stay EvilRoyal Potato Family2011 The story of jazz/rock cominglings is a not a happy one, strewn, as it is, with compromise and the middle ground. But it does include some happy chapters, several of them set in the modern jam band era. One of these concerns Garage A Trois, the group which has, since 2009's Power Patriot (Royal Potato Family), consisted of tenor saxophonist Skerik, ...

Garage a Trois: Power Patriot

by Chris Kompanek
December 8, 2009

The lines between jazz and rock can become blurred inside of a really good groove. That's exactly what happens on Garage a Trois' Power Patriot. In spite of its hokey title with red state overtones, the ten songs it contains are tightly constructed jams composed largely by Mike Dillon and pianist Marco Benevento, whose own trio focuses on indie-rock- based jazz. Upon opening the CD, it's clear that this is not a typical jazz album. The inside cover art is ...

Garage A Trois: Power Patriot

by Mark Corroto
November 10, 2009

The music of Garage A Trois is located somewhere on the map between do-it-yourself punk fusion and hip-hop jamband. The current lineup replaces guitarist Charlie Hunter, heard on Outre Mer (Telarc, 2006) and Emphasizer (Tone Cool, 2003), with keyboardist Marco Benevento. The effect is to push the music more towards saxophonist Skerik's prior efforts in the Seattle band Ponga. The change here is heard in the writing of vibraphonist Mike Dillon and Benevento's keyboard mayhem. A fan of ...

Garage A Trois: Outre Mer

by Michael McCaw
August 26, 2005

Garage a Trois, a quartet consisting of Mike Dillon, Charlie Hunter, Skerik, and Stanton Moore, recorded Outre Mer live with no overdubs: no small feat given its buoyantly dense sound. And although the name of the band doesn't quite fit the number of musicians, they combine elements found in each of their solo projects to form a collective sound, something wholly unique.Favoring breakneck movement-inducing funk/groove backdrop replete with punchy horn lines, hand mutes, and swaggering percussion, this soundtrack ...

Garage a Trois: Outre Mer

by John Kelman
August 2, 2005

Film music has its own sets of demands, often required to elevate the emotional content of the cinematic story while at the same time seamlessly blending so that it doesn't dominate. And while scores can literally define the mood of a film at their best--think Hitchcock's Psycho--and some only work in conjunction with the films for which they're intended, some can also stand as independent entities, like Miles Davis' 1950s score for Ascenseur pour L'Echafaud.

Some film scores are all ...

Garage A Trois: Outre Mer

by Stephen Latessa
July 28, 2005

Garage A Trois' Outre Mer is the soundtrack to an as yet unreleased French film of the same name. The band, consisting of Mike Dillon (percussion, vibraphone), Charlie Hunter (eight-string guitar, pandero), Stanton Moore (drums, polyrhythms), and Skerik (saxophone), lays down surging funk-influenced tunes, tempered by the intricate delicacy of vibraphone and guitar.

The main problem with most soundtrack recordings is that they can be, well, boring. Since the main purpose of the music is to accompany the ...