Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Johnathan Blake: Trion

13

Johnathan Blake: Trion

By

View read count
Johnathan Blake: Trion
Johnathan Blake, an in-demand drummer who has contributed to recordings by trumpeter Tom Harrell and guitarist Russell Malone, presents an ambitious two-CD set, Trion, a chordless trio affair with a pair of fellow first-callers, saxophonist Chris Potter and bassist Linda May Han Oh. The ground was broken for this particular format by saxophonist Sonny Rollins' A Night At The Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1958), a freewheeling exploration of jazz standards and Great American Songbook tunes.

Where A Night At The Village Vanguard sounds raw and unrehearsed—a seat-of-the-pants recording if ever there was one (in a very good way)—Trion is a slightly tighter presentation of music, with Potter displaying as much muscle as Rollins. A level of familiarity pervades as Potter played in the Mingus Big Band with Blake in the 1990s, and also on Blake's 2014 disc, Gone, But Not Forgotten (Criss Cross Records). Linda May Han Oh is newer to Blake's orbit; she has played with him in trios with saxophonists Mark Turner and Jaleel Shaw, and she steps into this situation with powerhouse flexibility and virtuosity.

Blake opens both discs with brief drum solos, "Calodendrum" on Disc One—the name of the African evergreen tree, a nod to the drum language's roots—and "Bedrum," meaning "to drum about in celebration," on Disc Two.

Following the drum opening on Disc One, Potter offers an intense-yet-ghostly tenor intro that gels into "Synchronicity 1," from the Police songbook, seventeen minutes of sustained intensity that set the tone for two CD's worth of inspired, no-hold-barred trio music. "Trope," an Oh composition, shifts from a moody bass intro into a melodically Near Eastern-sounding tune, with the heartbeat of the bass creating a disturbing EKG readout.

Potter contributes two pieces, and Blake adds several of his own. All are delivered to create a cohesive whole, spanning both discs, featuring a consistently spirited threeway interplay and a crisp clarity of input all around, with Charlie Parker's "Relaxing At the Camarillo" serving as a touchstone to early bop, with the trio tearing it up in grand style. No relaxing at all.

Chordless trio outings have become commonplace since Sonny Rollins introduced the idea. Few hit the level of excellence of Trion.

Track Listing


CD 1:
Calodendrum; Synchronicity 1; Trope (Linda Intro); Trope; One for Honor; High School Daze; No Bebop Daddy.
CD 2:
Bedrum; Good Hope; Eagle; Relaxing at the Camarillo; Blue Heart; West Berkley St.

Personnel

Johnathan Blake: drums; Chris Potter: tenor saxophone; Linda May Han Oh: bass.

Album information

Title: Trion | Year Released: 2019 | Record Label: Giant Step Arts

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Johnathan Blake Concerts


Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.