David Virelles: Creative Inspirations

Though we can likely assume that any music brought to life by pianist David Virelles, with his uncanny ability to make even the most jagged improvisation sound like yesteryear's standard, bassist Reggie Workman, who at eighty-eight still plays like the young turk afire alongside John Coltrane at the Village Vanguard, and drummer Andrew Cyrille who, at eighty-six, still epitomizes free jazz drumming, to move about freely through space and time and go where it will. Creative Inspirations comes at you several ways at once.

Seeking to continue the singular achievements of Trio 3—the still revered Encounter (Passin' Thru, 2000), Time Being (Intakt, 2005), and with Vijay Iyer Wiring (Intakt, 2014)—Workman and Cyrille approached Virelles to replace retired saxophonist Oliver Lake and start anew as Trio Imagination.

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Creative Inspirations, by its nature, is disorienting and disquieting, or could be if cooler heads did not prevail and make the music quiet and exhilarating in equal measure. "Unseen Mother" lights the way. It rumbles. It roils. It takes shape; shape-shifts, then drifts off into the ether. In the ether, we find the modern dance of "Pétalo," a rhythmic tour-de-force by all onsite. Workman pops. Cyrille drives. Virelles finds and fashions the melody into a dancehall fave.

"Universal Sketches" is a dark, virtual-reality Workman solo that Cyrille and Virelles have their way with starting around the three-and- a-half-minute mark. Moaning, squealing like voices of the oppressed over prepared piano. "Refuge," on a lighter note, is Virelles at his standard- bearing best. "Space Dance" is space exploration at its most undaunted, folding in, on, and over its sideways-glancing self. The brief, arrhythmic tango "Neves" serves to offset the quiet storm of "Unseen Mother II." Creative Inspirations closes with "Para Ti," another dance of equals. Long live Trio Imagination.