Trio Music

Sound DNA

• Jazz
• Post-Bop & Modal

• meditative

About

In 1968, pianist Chick Corea, bassist Miroslav Vitouš, and drummer Roy Haynes made <i>Now He Sings, Now He Sobs</i>, a touchstone of modern jazz. But <i>Trio Music</i>, the group’s 1982 follow-up, goes in a bit of a different direction—<i>two</i> directions, in fact. The first album in this two-LP collection is all free improvisation, abstracted and full of timbral contrast over the course of five trio pieces, two piano/bass duos, and the Corea original “Slippery When Wet” (which the pianist’s <i>Three Quartets</i> band also played). The second LP, meanwhile, consists of seven Thelonious Monk tunes. He died in early 1982, and when <i>Trio Music</i> arrived later that year, the album landed as a gesture of great love and admiration to a departed giant of 20th-century music. The presence of Roy Haynes—the OG sideman to Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, and, of course, Monk himself—lends a palpable weight to these trio ruminations. The free improvisations are richly varied, with an experimental flavor that harkens back to Corea’s earlier <i>A.R.C.</i> trio with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul, or even his work with Anthony Braxton in Circle. <i>Trio Music</i> ventures into that space a bit, using soundscapes and episodes of jagged, amorphous swing to create what feels like an album-length narrative. Vitouš is frequently heard with a bow, playing passages marked by a deep, lyrical urgency throughout (something he’d explore further on the group’s 1984 release <i>Trio Music, Live in Europe</i>).

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits