Trio 3 & Jason Moran - review in THE GUARDIAN

THE GUARDIAN

25 July 2013

4 out of 5 Trio 3 Plus Jason Moran

 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.