The Boobs Trio: Saggy

Credit The Boobs Trio for their topical sense of humor, sorely missed in the contemporary jazz repertoire. The jazz industry has taken itself far too seriously in the last 30-40 years and Saggy, featuring three young jazz performers of note, raises hope for levity to take on jazz with ripping vengeance. Their take on the now infamous revealing of a middle-aged breast, during the Super Bowl's Half Time Show, is as bootylicious as milk and pie.

There is, however, a somewhat odd dynamic to this unlikely trio. Whereas Anthony Jackson stays par the heavy bottom course through most of the date...with the notable exception of his foray into a virtually unknown ethnic Indian bass sitar of 2400 strings in "Jazz Malfunction and "Stern Collateral Damage ...Brad Mehldau marches in his own fractious harmonic world, leaving drummer Horacio "El Negro Hernández to roam skins in Alpha male percussive fashion.

Hernández's relentless and penetrating pulse in taikobatá...a cross between the Japanese taiko drums and the Afro Cuban batás...adds a touch of sonic phallic paraphernalia in "Timberlakeing. "Breast Bowl is the domain of Mehldau whose prowess in the Argentinean bandoneón was previously unheard on record. Even Piazzolla would approve! "Saggy, on the other hand, is a droopy bass displays that register's Jackson funk on the lowest register yet on guitar bass.

"Don't ask how it works, just listen to it and see that it does, would be my advice to any interested party in this release.