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CG 134
Big Picture by Trio M
Melford, Dresser, and Wilson
"Big Picture" by Trio M features pianist Myra Melford, bassist Mark
Dresser, and drummer Matt Wilson, who was recently voted #1 Rising Star
Drummer in the 2007 Downbeat Critics Poll. Trio M is a collectively
led ensemble that brings together some of the greatest talent in the
jazz world today. This trio highlights the impressive compositional,
improvisational, and instrumental skills of its members. In this case,
Trio M is greater than the sum if its parts. Street date: October 23, 2007. Available now!
Reviews
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Pianist Myra Melford, bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Matt Wilson perform seven intriguing originals on this CD. To simplify the improvising a bit, it hints strongly in spots ofCecil Taylor, the percussiveness of Don Pullen, and of Keith Jarrett's '70s inside/outside music without sounding like a copy of any of those predecessors. The interplay between the three musicians is consistently exciting and, while Melford is the main soloist, Dresser has some spots on bowed bass while Wilson's supportive contributions should not be overlooked. The performances are consistently unpredictable, drawing upon much of jazz history of the past 40 years while creating new and fresh music. This set grows in interest with each listen and contains some of Melford's finest playing to date. -Scott Yanow
All Music Guide [October 2007]
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Corraling these three was an inspired notion -- toppermost musicians
with obvious chemistry, relaxed and trying to prove nothing. Seems they
made an adventuresome, extremely likable record without hardly trying.
Yea tho they be avantists, they shrank not from having a bit o’ sport
with the blues -- strolling, strutting and dazed/confused on “Modern
Pine”; tumbling into a regular bar scuffle complete with busted stools
and an escalating “oh yeah well so’s your mama” riff on “Naïve Art.”
There’s a tip of the hat to Ornette (“For Bradford”), a dark and
stealthy paranoia riff (“FreeKonomics”), and let’s see what happens
when we seat post-bop next to Iberian tango and serve up the bubbly
(“BrainFire and BugLight”). Melford applies her hard-rubber piano touch
to rush and splash; Wilson drums with prodding, conversational
humanity; Dresser is bigger and more bottomy than you probably
expected, turning in an emotional hate-to-even-call-it-a-performance
on Melford’s “Secrets to Tell You” -- the way his bass melody laments
and his coarse overtones plead, it veritably feels as if he’s bowing
your heartstrings. And let me tell you my own story of the long
cinematic title track. Melford’s lost in the back roads of New Jersey,
see, late for a gig, when she pulls over to scan a map and falls
asleep. She wakes in another world -- beautiful, but she senses danger.
As her head clears (did somebody slip knockout drops into her coffee?),
bright light shoots painfully through her consciousness and she
remembers a dire prophecy. A low rumble begins, then builds. The ground
is shaking! She prays, unsure, never having prayed before. And the
earthquake relents. It was only a 4.8. Or was that just the setup for
the main temblor? Dunno. Wait for the sequel.
Greg Burk MetalJazz [October 2007]
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The dynamic that occurs when a specific group of players comes together just can’t be predicted, even if they’ve worked together in other contexts. That’s the story with Trio M—pianist Myra Melford, bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson—three musicians who have intersected on more than one occasion and talked about getting together as a trio. After a handful of 2006 gigs proved correct their inkling that this trio project had more than just potential, they hit the studio with a collection of material, some of which will be familiar to fans of Dresser’s Aquifer (Cryptogramophone, 2002) and Melford’s Where the Two Worlds Touch (Arabesque, 2004). Big Picture proves the malleability of strong material in the hands of a different set of players.
Melford’s “brainFire and bugLight,” a series of motifs linked together by unfettered free play, isn’t quite as chaotic here as it was on Two Worlds, but pared down to a trio there’s an even stronger sense of connection between the musicians. First Dresser, then Melford, get unaccompanied solos; but it’s how the other trio-mates gradually insinuate themselves into the picture that makes things especially interesting. The eastern-tinged 5/4 ostinato passed around like a tag-team early on, allowing everyone the chance to take the lead, is powerful stuff; how they gradually converge into a two-chord, 6/8 pulse from Melford’s solo, no sooner getting there than shifting gears again into another repeated pattern that gives Wilson another solo opportunity before returning to the 5/4 pattern to close, is more impressive still.
Melford and Dresser both have strong reputations in free jazz/improv, and the exuberant Wilson has no shortage of experience either. But the drummer is perhaps better-known in a space that’s a little closer to center—albeit still left-of—and more closely aligned with contexts that groove. On Melford’s title track which, at over thirteen minutes is both the album’s longest and its centerpiece, Wilson effortlessly works through the pianist’s various complex cues without a hitch, creating an underlying ebb-and-flow turbulence that’s as close to reckless abandon as he’s ever been.
That’s not to say, amidst Melford’s near-anarchistic improvisations and Dresser’s fluctuating pulses, that Trio M doesn’t, at times, groove or play it gentle. The bluesy vibe of Dresser’s “Modern Pine” is undeniable, despite breaking midway through Melford’s solo into a double-time swing, then accelerating further into a quarter-note triplet feel that drives Melford to even greater extremes before settling back to its more visceral opening tempo. Melford’s “Secrets to Tell You,” featuring Dresser’s ever-remarkable arco, is an ethereal tone poem that approaches deeper beauty without ever resorting to tired cliché, while the 7/4 pattern at the heart of Wilson’s “Freekonomics” provides a core over which Wilson and Dresser play liberally with time; shifting and elastic, yet ever-present. If this is a snapshot of where Trio M was after only a few gigs, one can only hope there’ll be a follow-up to Big Picture—an album where nobody dominates and everyone shines. - John Kelman
John Kelman All About Jazz [November 2007]
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Who are today's heroes of jazz? Icons pushing the art form forward, while both challenging and amazing the listener, emerge from a generation that cut their teeth in the Downtown scene of the '80s and '90s (not AACM sages of the '60 and '70s, but not fresh-faced out of music school, either) and have matured into masters of their craft who can set the example clear into this next century.
Bringing some such stalwarts into laser-sharp focus is the group called Trio M, combining three of the tightest and most innovative players for reasons presumably other than their first initials.
Frequent Dave Douglas collaborator Myra Melford -- the top female avant-garde pianist I can think of, other than Marilyn Crispell -- has an innate ability to swing inside and express the blues succinctly (see the track "Naive Art") but also to venture way out, Cecil Taylor style.
Then we have Mark Dresser, member of Anthony Braxton's group in the late '80s, whose current resume stretches from college professor to classical symphony player, along with working from everyone from John Zorn to Andrew Cyrille. And finally, drummer Matt Wilson, who began in the Boston with the famed Either/Orchestra and has pounded his way towards recent recognition in Downbeat magazine.
So Trio M is a supergroup in every sense, but what do they accomplish on this debut? Right out of the gate, "brainFire and bugLight" demonstrates their knack for both a head-bobbing 5/4 motif and for gentle, sculptural soundscapes. "Modern Pine" heads in the other direction, aiming for accessible, finger-snapping lounge-pizzazz, almost making you think there are two different groups on the same disc, until Melford unconventionally unravels her piano lines. If it doesn't get serious consideration for public radio airplay, something's wrong with the program director.
On "Secrets to Tell You," Dresser spins beautiful, somewhat mournful arco melodies, while "FreeKonomics" illustrates the most rhythmic aspects of the trio, as Wilson propels the proceedings with percussion that stops and starts on a dime. The centerpiece is truly the title track in the middle, containing an impressive overview of this trio's skill in wicked interplay and instrumental inventiveness, from introspective mellows to frenetic bombast. There's nothing so off-the-wall that any mainstream jazzer couldn't easily get the "Big Picture" on what the forefront of the avant-garde represents today. The "New Thing" is still as relevant and entertaining as ever.
-- Manny Theiner
Manny Theiner Pittsburgh Post Gazette [December 6th, 2007]
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Big Picture returns Myra Melford to the interlocking trio format with which the diminutive pianist made her reputation in the early 1990s. Except that Trio M is more than the earlier Melford Trio writ large; it's completed by two other forceful improvisers and composers. Like the pianist, bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson are bandleaders on their own. However, the seven-track CD, which divdes the playing and writing chores, irrefutably proves that the sum is greater than its parts. Dresser, who teaches at UC San Diego, is a multi-faceted bassist who at different points on a composition like Wilson's "Naive Art" woodenly vibrates a plucked funky blues line in tandem with the drummer's backbeat crunches with the same assurance he uses to create spiccato squeezes to match Melford's slurry triple cadences. Colouring the proceedings with steady bumps and clatter, plus unselfconscious rim shots, bell peals and tempo modulations, Wilson is as impressive a percussionist as he is a composer. Antiphonally, the three frequently interlock tones and tempos, as distinctive keyboard vamps, drum bounces or bass strokes often adumbrating connective themes. Soldering together triple techniques most effectively is the more-than-thirteen-and-a-half minute title track. Polytonally modulating from cerebral strummed piano lines to romantic low-frequency runs to near-frenzied cascading overtones with characteristic portamento sluices, Melford's output is complemented both by Dresser's squeaky sul ponticello and double stopped shuffle bowing plus Wilson's rhythmic shifts from irregular ruffs and flams to hammered echoing cymbal resonation. Highly rated across the board, this is a Big Picture for everyone. -by Ken Waxman
Ken Waxman CODA [November 2007]
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The Creative process pursued by pianist Myra Melford, bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson requires great concentration, openness and surrender on the part of the listeners. Melford's "brainFire and bugLight"starts as an assertive anthem built on variations of a simple three-note figure. What makes this trio so different is not that they depart this strong structure (Melford kicked free into long tumbling runs, Dresser whirling and fidgeting, Wilson spattering details in space), but that everything they spontaneously come upon creates new forms, and the relationships among the forms is never obvious. The deepest enigma is Melford's title track, a huge 13-minute expressionistic canvas. The component elements are knowable (blues moods, neo-classical architectures, free-jazz psychodramas, pairings in spiraling counterpoint, individual interludes like Dresser's arco mournings) and yet, again, the logic that connects them is not. While staying alert enough to follow Trio M around is intellectually challenging, there is fun along with the work. Dresser's "Modern Pine," like everything from Trio M, is arcane and constantly transforming. It is also downright catchy.
Jeff Simon Jazz Times [February 2008]
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Taking a cue from their first names, they call themselves Trio M, but are established enough to keep their names on the spine. I figure the complex, cerebral stuff is pianist Melford's, and credit the bouncy bits to drummer Matt Wilson. There's no doubt that the weird arco bass is Dresser's. He has a huge reputation, but rarely makes albums you can kick back and enjoy. This is the exception. -by Tom Hull
Tom Hull The Village Voice [9/23/08]
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