THE GUARDIAN
25 July 2013
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Refraction - Breakin' Glass
(Intakt Records)
by John Fordham
That raw, elemental, soul-baring jazz sound inspired by
Albert Ayler and late-period John Coltrane has fewer guardians nowadays,
perhaps as cutting-edge jazz has reverted to structures, albeit more precisely
mathematical ones. But three of its most creative current representatives are
Trio 3 – performers with close connections to the African-American "New
Thing" of the 1960s in sometime Coltrane bassist Reggie Workman, drummer
Andrew Cyrille, and World Saxophone Quartet alto and sopranino player Oliver
Lake. Trio 3 date from 1986, but they've enjoyed very fruitful recent
collaborations with brilliant contemporary pianists – Geri Allen and Irène
Schweizer, and now Charles Lloyd sideman Jason Moran. Long passages on this
set still involve the uninhibited Lake unleashing wild, multiphonic sounds and
high-end inquisitions, or Workman scurrying through tumbling group-improv
episodes with dark bowed-bass slurs. But the set is full of good tunes, too,
such as the nu-funky, distantly Bad Plus-like title track, Cyrille's
free-swinging Listen and the jarring, exclamatory Vamp. Moran steers everybody
with ingenious hooks, and his own loose-limbed solos show how inventive he can
be whether the setup is prescriptive or non-existent.
