Tim Ray Trio: Fire & Rain

Boston-based pianist Tim Ray and his rhythm mates, bassist John Lockwood and drummer Mark Walker, have been performing together since 2013, and Fire & Rain is their second recording as a trio. Their years working arm-in-arm and side-by-side have spawned a symbiotic relationship, and it shows.

Even when the trio tests the free-jazz waters—as it does only once, on a seat-of-the-pants salute to Chick Corea, "Improv #1 (for Chick)"—everyone is on the same page and no one gets lost in its maze-like chasms. Elsewhere, this is contemporary trio jazz that mirrors a pattern set by Bud Powell, Erroll Garner, Marian McPartland, Billy Taylor, Hampton Hawes, Oscar Peterson and others, and has moved onward through the more recent successes of celebrated threesomes led by Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett and the like.

Ray's trio bows to Jarrrett with the powerful "Windup," Peterson with his dreamy "Nighttime." Thelonious Monk is represented by the opening "Bye-Ya," pianist Dave McKenna by his hard-hitting tribute to the Boston Red Sox' Hall of Fame slugger, Ted Williams ("Theodore the Thumper"). Ray composed the assertive "NO Worries" for the city of New Orleans, Lockwood the hymnlike "JBug and the KMan" (marking the first time his elder son met his newborn brother), Walker the charming waltz, "Moon in the Sea."

Other writers embraced on the engaging menu are Oliver Nelson ("Stolen Moments"), Antonio Carlos Jobim ("Mojave"), Carla Bley ("Lawns") and James Taylor (two versions of his iconic "Fire and Rain"). Ray and the trio are superb on every one, blending their talents in service to the music, as the more notable trios before them have. Based on the outcome of Fire & Rain, it is a safe bet that the list of admirable contemporary jazz trios has grown one name longer.

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