Ellery Eskelin - tenor saxophoneGary Versace - Hammond B3 organGerald Cleaver - drums

TRIO NEW YORK

ELLERY ESKELIN - Trio New York prime source recordings CD 6010

ELLERY ESKELIN - tenor saxophoneGary Versace - Hammond B3 organGerald Cleaver - drums 1. Memories of You2. Off Minor3. Witchcraft4. Lover Come Back to Me5. How Deep is the Ocean

Recorded on February 10th, 2011 in New York City.

ELLERY ESKELIN - Trio New York II prime source recordings CD 7010

ELLERY ESKELIN - tenor saxophoneGary Versace - Hammond B3 organGerald Cleaver - drums 1. The Midnight Sun2. Just One of Those Things3. We See4. My Ideal5. After You’ve Gone6. Flamingo

Recorded on January 31st, 2013 in New York City.

TRIO NEW YORK"…hard-charging band featuring Gary Versace on organ and Gerald Cleaver on drums…combines soul-jazz grease with the heat of abstraction." NY Times, July 2013

"…a real-deal organ-trio album…" New York Times, Sunday July 31st, 2011

"They’re not trying to meet expectations, but they’re not trying to challenge them either. They are just, in this modern world, in this big city, grooving." THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD, August 2011

"Trio New York is good, intelligent fun, relaxed but engaged and very hip. It may be avant-garde, but it’s still organ combo jazz." Point of Departure.org, Issue 35 - June 2011

"Eskelin loves the hard-boiled tenor tradition once embodied by Gene Ammons and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, though, and because he remains in touch with the combination of the tender and the brusque central to the code even at his most abstract, these interpretations are as moving as they are thought-provoking." Francis Davis, The Village Voice, NYC December 2011

ELLERY ESKELIN"…a rugged tenor saxophonist with a romantic streak that runs parallel to his experimental leanings…" The New Yorker - February 2013

"...Eskelin continues to be the most inventive American tenor player in creative music..."(Down Beat Nov. 1996)

"a wily tenor saxophonist who keeps both feet in the present while judiciously reconsidering the jazz tradition…" The New Yorker - July 2013

"...brilliant and consummately versatile..." (Time Out New York, 2008)

"...a powerful soloist brimming with ideas and limitless imagination..." (Time Out London, 2009)

"An imaginative, daring improvisor..." (Village Voice, March 1999)

"He's managed to find his own unique space in the avant-jazz sphere..." Time Out New York 2001

a "Tenor original" (Pulse)

"A major player in today's creative music" (Down Beat, September 1995)

"Tenor saxophonist, Ellery Eskelin is without a doubt one of the most important figures in modern jazz improvisation." (allaboutjazz.com)

"...a range of technical / emotional / sonic vocabulary and a bounty of ideas equaling or exceeding anyone who's ever broken in a reed." (allaboutjazz.com)

NEW YORK TIMESJuly 28th, 2011

Trio New York / Ellery Eskelin (prime source)

The tenor saxophonist ELLERY ESKELIN took a roundabout path to the Hammond B-3 organ trio, though he didn’t have to travel far to find it. During the first years of his childhood, in the early 1960s, his mother — a B-3 organ player known as Bobbie Lee — worked the lounge circuit in Baltimore, playing standards with a swinging feel. As a teenager Mr. Eskelin had some formative bandstand experience playing house parties with her, but his own career would follow the thornier prerogatives of the avant-garde. “Trio New York” is the corrective: a real-deal organ-trio album released by Prime Source, dedicated to Mr. Eskelin’s mother and partly inspired by his discovery of her roots in the Pentecostal church. Its opener, Eubie Blake’s “Memories of You,” starts out with a pulse like pulled taffy, but soon a walking bass line emerges and we’re in knowable terrain. Mr. Eskelin, playing soulfully, takes the opportunity to acknowledge his fondness for tenor forbears like Gene Ammons, without losing his own sense of phrase. And his band mates on the album, Gary Versace on organ and Gerald Cleaver on drums, can handle churning swing or dark abstraction. They’re terrific partners for him.

- by Nate Chinen

TIME OUT NEW YORK August 1, 2011

Live preview: Ellery Eskelin—Trio New YorkA risk-taking local saxist tries out a subtler form of experimentation.

Saxist Ellery Eskelin’s long-running trio with drummer Jim Black and accordionist Andrea Parkins was built for instability. The band, which worked steadily from the mid-’90s to the mid-aughts, proudly espoused NYC’s downtown-jazz ethos with its punky blend of chaos and whimsy. Eskelin’s new three-piece, Trio New York, represents a clear rebranding. The group’s instrumentation—the leader’s tenor, plus Gary Versace’s organ and Gerald Cleaver’s drums—references the earthy tradition of ’60s soul jazz, as well as the working life of Eskelin’s mother, Bobbie Lee, a professional organist during the same decade.On Trio New York’s new self-titled debut, the weirdness of the Parkins-Black years is sublimated. Eskelin clearly still values open-ended improv, but in the company of Versace and Cleaver, the process yields a gentle flow of ideas rather than an aesthetic of disruption. The band has a beautiful way with jazz standards, starting out free-form and gradually zeroing in on the tunes, like water swirling around an open drain. For Eskelin, the approach is a neat catchall: both a deepening engagement with tradition and a renewed statement of individuality.! !

- by Hank Shteamer

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD 18 August 2011

Trio New York Ellery Eskelin (Prime Source)

Ellery Eskelin has been circling around the organ trio for years. His excellent and overlooked 1996 release The Sun Died (Soul Note), a bass-free trio on which Marc Ribot’s thick distorted guitar almost functioned as an organ, was a loving homage to soul jazz tenor great Gene Ammons, who often had a Hammond in his bands. He inched closer with the great trio he fronted for a decade featuring Andrea Parkins on accordion and keyboards and drummer Jim Black. And in fact Eskelin grew up under the influence: his mother worked the Baltimore circuit playing organ under the name “Bobbie Lee”. Ever keen to play with forms and turn style inside out, Eskelin hasn’t been one to take an obligingly reverential approach to the sax/organ/drum lineup. But he’s come closer still with a new band he’s been woodshedding around town for a couple years. Trio New York finds him at last taking on the classic instrumentation, with Gary Versace on the mighty Hammond B3 and Gerald Cleaver behind the drums. And not only is the personnel on spot, but the track list is proper organ-trio as well, with Irving Berlin, Eubie Blake and Thelonious Monk complementing the lesser known Cy Coleman and Sigmund Romberg (although their “Witchcraft” and “Lover Come Back to Me” are certainly familiar choices). This may be Eskelin’s first release that doesn’t feature any of his own compositions since 1988’s Setting the Standard and the purpose is clear. He’s here to play. Eskelin and Versace (whose many credits include work with Lee Konitz, John Hollenbeck and Maria Schneider) conjure a luxuriously swirling richness throughout, the latter doing double duty keeping an easy bass swing alongside the drums. Cleaver’s pedigree may lean more toward the heavy improv, having worked with Roscoe Mitchell, Joe Morris and Mat Maneri, but sessions with Ralph Alessi and Mario Pavone have demonstrated his grasp of tradition. And the summed interplay is just wonderful. They’re not trying to meet expectations, but they’re not trying to challenge them either. They are just, in this modern world, in this big city, grooving.

- by Kurt Gottschalk

Saxophonist Ellery Eskelin goes Back To Organ-ic Beginnings! Twenty albums and more than 20 years into his career, tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin is taking a detour. After concentrating on free improvisation in avant-garde settings, Eskelin has recorded an organ trio album featuring Great American Songbook standards. ! That album, Trio New York (Prime Source), is hardly conventional. Backed by organ player Gary Versace and drummer Gerald Cleaver, the tenor player doesn’t let the music or instrumentation preempt his penchant for free-jazz. While recording the album in February, Eskelin never identified the tunes in the group’s small repertoire; his sidemen merely reacted.! The album’s five tracks encompass 75 minutes and rely more on intuition than the bluesy grooves typical of organ combos. You have to listen hard to recognize “Off Minor” and “How Deep Is The Ocean?! “That process is more akin to my approach to free improvisation,” Eskelin said. “The big difference with this record is that we were basically doing free improv with a lot of harmonic information.” ! Versace added, “I just knew before I ever heard him play those tunes that he could bring a fresh approach to playing that music if he wanted to, because his playing is so informed; it’s so melodic.” ! Trio New York marks a return to Eskelin’s roots. His mother, Bobbie Lee, was an organ player who performed professionally in the early 1960s. Eskelin grew up in Baltimore and sometimes accompanied Lee at house parties. His early influences included tenor players such as Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt and Mickey Fields, a Baltimore legend. After college, Eskelin toured with trombonist Buddy Morrow’s big band and then moved to New York in 1983, where his gigs included Brother Jack McDuff’s organ combo.! “At that time I really wanted to get into the jazz scene,” recalled Eskelin. But he soon grew tired of performing in conventional small groups. In 1987 Eskelin experienced an “artistic awakening” during anafternoon jam session. Jazz soon became taboo—even to listen to. “Long story short, I wound up getting with like-minded musicians who were doing (their) own music and realized that that was the way to go.” ! Eskelin experienced another epiphany in 2008 when his mother asked him to store her Hammond B-3 organ at his apartment in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. The presence of the instrument in Eskelin’s living room brought back memories; he began inviting organ players to his apartment for informal sessions. ! He met Versace in early 2009 during a gig with John Hollenbeck, and the two began practicing that spring. The first edition of the trio debuted in May 2010 at Rosie O’Grady’s in New York. Eskelin also started playing a vintage 1927 Conn. “I’m continuing to work on my sound,” he said. “The organ trio project comes out of that.”

- by Eric Fine

http://www.pointofdeparture.org/

On his latest CD, tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin casts an appraising eye on the organ combo genre with the help of Gary Versace on Hammond B3 and drummer Gerald Cleaver. In many respects, Eskelin is the perfect man for the job. He plays with a joie de vivre that’s in keeping with the good-time vibe of some of the great organ trio saxophonists like Stanley Turrentine and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. But he also has a mile-wide subversive streak and a habit of finding clever ways to warp or undermine cliché and convention. Certainly the organ combo genre has its share of conventions and clichés and Eskelin knows them well enough to have his way with most of them on this delightful CD. Without resorting to parody or belittling this once-popular style of hard bop, Trio New York takes organ combo chestnuts such as “Lover Come Back to Me” and “Witchcraft” and loosens their joints, stretching them into vehicles for lusty free jazz improvisation. It’s a nicely balanced attack of brains and brawn that deconstructs the genre while paying respect to it. Eskelin approached popular black jazz of the 50s in a similar manner on The Sun Died, a 1996 Soul Note album devoted primarily to Chicago tough tenor Gene Ammons’s tunes. If anything, Trio New York is both subtler and more adventurous, more at home with the music and less self conscious about taking liberties with it.

Eubie Blake’s “Memories of You” is a case in point. The trio slips in quietly about as far from the tune aspossible, playing out of tempo and deliberately piecing together a patchwork performance into anincreasingly fluid collective improvisation that slowly homes in on a relaxed tempo. It’s a risky approachbecause the emergence of the melody must sound natural and unforced and they have a long way to go to get to it, but their interpretation hangs together well. Abstract as it is, the spirit of organ jazz courses through it. Versace works the bass pedals with great skill, something many dabblers in the Hammond B3,who treat it like a giant electric piano, often neglect. Eskelin’s mellow virility suits the medium balladtempo nicely, even as his lines glance off in unforeseen directions and he threads his analytical way around hard bop conventions. Cleaver keeps up a conversational interchange with the group, but he’s also always thinking his way around obvious responses or trite approaches.

Monk’s “Off Minor” receives a similarly informed but adventurous treatment. First of all, they all use Monk’s melody as the basis for their individual and collective development of the music – a sure sign that they understand what Monk is about. But they willingly follow their variations further and further away from the tune into entirely fresh areas. Versace is especially impressive on this track, both for what he plays and for what he doesn’t. When he lays off the keyboard and just pumps the bass lines during Eskelin’s solo, one can’t help thinking of the way Monk used to stroll during horn solos. Versace’s own solo features darting lines that hip hop upward and downward in an irregular pulse over an aggressive bass line, achieving the kind of awkward grace that Monk did, without using Monk’s vocabulary.

“Lover Come Back to Me,” which opens with a solo tenor introduction and then settles into an extendedtrio jam that hews pretty close to steady a medium groove, still finds ways to defy convention in myriadways. Versace erupts out of the pocket with Sun Ra patches of sound and spacey timbres. Cleaver pulls the beat out from under the band, and then subtly slips it back in, working his accents into gaps in the music, pursuing his own ideas while remaining attuned to the energy level and direction of the soloists. Eskelin maintains an unperturbed demeanor, a laid-back vitality harnessed to penetrating wit. Trio New York is good, intelligent fun, relaxed but engaged and very hip. It may be avant-garde, but it’s still organ combo jazz.

- By Ed Hazell

JazzTimes MagazineSeptember 2011

Ellery EskelinTrio New YorkThe lineup—Ellery Eskelin on tenor sax, Gary Versace on Hammond B3, Gerald Cleaver on drums—may lead you to think this is a groove-jazz organ trio. Not so. This band has more in common with an acoustic bebop trio than anything Jimmy Smith or Jack McDuff ever did.

On its face, Trio New York certainly looks like a groove outing. Five standards averaging 15 minutes apiece—the ingredients are there. But the organ often behaves more like a piano or even a second horn than the instrument that too often comes with a license to resort to clichés and gimmicks. You won’t find Versace playing the same lick for 16 bars, holding sustains until your ears hurt, or pulling the drawbars in and out and in and out. What you will find is a good deal of high-minded musical conversation and intent listening to one another.

Versace accents and underscores Eskelin’s soft, supple introductory phrases on “Memories of You,” and as the tune gets going the group gets in the pocket, with Cleaver’s skittering attack evolving into a breezy swing rhythm. Neither here nor on tunes like “Witchcraft” or Thelonious Monk’s “Off Minor” (where the organ sounds like telephone buttons) does Eskelin state the melody entirely at the outset; he more or less improvises off the theme while offering just enough of a taste of it to give the listener (and the sidemen) a frame of reference. When Eskelin finally does state a melody strongly—as he does several minutes into “Lover Come Back to Me”—it has a powerful effect, sending the trio into high gear, as if they’re saying, “Ah, yes, that’s it!” The closing number, a tender version of “How Deep Is the Ocean,” is so beautiful you don’t want it to end, not even after 14 minutes.

- by Steve Greenlee

Up-and-Coming Players from 2011, the Year of the TenorBy Francis Davispublished: December 21, 2011

Ellery Eskelin, Trio New York (prime source)

Although Eskelin might be familiar to song-poem aficionados as the son of Rodd Keith (of "I Died Today" notoriety), this one is dedicated to his mom, once a journeyman organist on the Baltimore neighborhood-lounge circuit. But with drummer Gerald Cleaver eschewing the merest hint of propulsion and instead engaging the saxophonist leader in quarrelsome dialogue, and Gary Versace coming up with such an odd, disquieting assortment of sounds that you're half-convinced he must be augmenting his Hammond B-3 with a synthesizer, this trio is about as far from your stereotypical organ combo as Boulez's Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique was from Harlem. Five standards ranging from "How Deep Is the Ocean" to Monk's "Off Minor" are probed for dark corners, their chord changes ignored and full statement of their melodies generally postponed to the end. Eskelin loves the hard-boiled tenor tradition once embodied by Gene Ammons and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, though, and because he remains in touch with the combination of the tender and the brusque central to the code even at his most abstract, these interpretations are as moving as they are thought-provoking.

These recordings capture saxophonist Ellery Eskelin in wildly divergent trios: one focusing on standards, the other making things up on the fly.

The first recording by his excellent organ trio with Gary Versace and Gerald Cleaver was dedicated to his mother, Bobby Lee, a Baltimore organist. Eskelin has written that he considers this group “a free improvisation unit” that just happens to use the Great American Songbook for structure. The first few minutes of “The Midnight Sun” find Versace playing spacey, cascading note runs while Eskelin deploys his gorgeously smoky tone to spontaneously shape melodies that sound recovered from half a century ago—the tune isalmost half over by the time Cleaver enters with gentle swing prodding and Versace traces the changes. Versace sometimes lays down bass lines using his foot pedals, but he also functions more in the pianistic role à la Larry Young.

Mirage is totally improvised. Pedal steel guitar player Susan Alcorn has a slippery quality that allows her to function as a fluid glue, bridging the sometimes nubby, sometimes woodynotes knotted up and the sinuous, striated lines bowed by Michael Formanek and breathy improvisation by Eskelin. !e album is dominated by ruminative pieces taken at ballad speed, with the exception of the rare piece where things move rapidly, like “Saturation,” with Eskelin playing eighth-note flurries and Formanek plucking out pointillistic lines. — Peter Margasak

Trio New York II: The Midnight Sun; Just One Of Those Things:We See; My Ideal; After You’ve Gone; Flamingo. (57:20)

Personnel: Ellery Eskelin, tenor saxophone; Gary Versace,Hammond B3 organ; Gerald Cleaver, drums.

Ordering info: home.earthlink.net/~eskelin/

For an artist who has worked mostly in the experimental and free improv hemispheres of the jazz world, tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin has an unusually deep connection to jazz roots and tradition. That’s clear on his latest release, Trio New York II, his second recording with organist Gary Versace and drummer Gerald Cleaver, which, like the group’s first outing, offers a thoroughly nonstandard take on a set of familiar standards.

While the lineup and repertoire suggest the classic soul jazz organ trio, the group’s approach is a long way from Jimmys Smith or McGriff. On the opening track, “Midnight Sun”, for example, Eskelin plays freely for three

or four minutes before finally stating the theme, an act that brings with it welcome catharsis. The group darts and dances around chestnuts like “After You’ve Gone” and “Flamingo”, seldom playing the recognizable melodies for long. Occasionally, as on a rousing version of “Just One of Those Things”, the trio gets deep in the pocket, but mostly they stay on the fringes, charting a middle ground between the frenzy often associated with free improv and the predictability of straightahead jazz.

For a free player, Eskelin’s sound is surprisingly soulful, often reminiscent of big-toned tenor men of the past like Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt. And when he plays it straight, or reasonably straight, like on “My Ideal”, he can conjure up a mood of romance and sheer beauty. Versace treats the Hammond B3 more like a piano than an organ most of the time, rarely offering routine backing or expected notes. He and Eskelin enjoy an easy rapport, frequently engaging in dexterous back-and-forth musical conversations. And Cleaver, a powerhouse drummer in most contexts, shows a superb restraint and subtlety here.

Ellery Eskelin Trio New York II Prime Source CD 7010

Since the advent of his solo career in the early 1990s, Ellery Eskelin’s respect for the jazz tradition has been an intrinsic, albeit discreet part of his oeuvre. Formed in 1994, Eskelin’s longstanding trio with accordionist Andrea Parkins and drummer Jim Black personified the adventurous tenor saxophonist’s avant-garde aesthetic, yet even their idiosyncratic discography bears occasional evidence of the idiom’s historical tenets. Most notable is the atypical 1999 Hatology album Five Other Pieces (+2), a set largely comprised of established standards by John Coltrane, George Gershwin and Lennie Tristano, among others. Recorded three years earlier for Soul Note Records, The Sun Died, Eskelin’s vibrant tribute to legendary tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons, is another unusually pertinent milestone, featuring guitarist Marc Ribot and drummer Kenny Wollesen as partners in a creative reimagining of the organ combos favored by the honoree.

Issued in 2011 on his own Prime Source Recordings imprint, Trio New York was Eskelin’s first dedicated foray into the classic organ trio format, a bold exploration of the Great American Songbook with Hammond B3 virtuoso Gary Versace and ubiquitous drummer Gerald Cleaver. Trio New York II is the sophomore follow-up to the group’s self-titled debut, refining its expansive approach towards standards, whether delving into outer realms or plying in-the-pocket grooves with soulful panache. Rather than simply deconstructing the traditional frameworks of beloved chestnuts, Trio New York builds recognizable structures from thematic abstractions, collectively transforming free-form improvisations into straight-ahead vamps and familiar chord changes.

Subtly referencing the past, Eskelin seamlessly weaves melodic fragments and oblique phrases into sinuous cadences that confirm his lyrical mastery of the extended line. His singular ability to marry avant-garde extrapolations with time-honored conventions is readily apparent on “The Midnight Sun,” the album’s atmospheric opener. Aided by Versace’s percolating organ flourishes, he gracefully transposes pithy coiled refrains into plangent ruminations.

Versace’s cascading filigrees and throbbing bass pedal accents provide harmonic counterpoint and rhythmic drive, venturing into uncharted territory during unaccompanied soliloquies like the pensive introduction to Thelonious Monk’s “Wee See,” which spotlights intervallic chord progressions reminiscent of Sun Ra. Cleaver’s adroit sensitivity and supple interjections imbue even the most freewheeling excursions with implied forward momentum, exemplified by a locomotive version of Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things,” that effortlessly transitions from pulsating rubato to euphoric swing courtesy of the drummer’s tasteful modulations in time, tempo and touch.

The genesis of this project can be traced to Eseklin’s formative years playing house parties with his mother, Bobbie Lee, who worked the Baltimore organ circuit in the 1960s. Accordingly, Trio New York digs deep into the standard songbook, conceptually delving further afield while offering heartfelt renditions of elegant ballads like “My Ideal” and “Flamingo,” as well as sophisticated swingers, including an opulent interpretation of “After You’ve Gone.” Embracing his roots in the context of a well-established format, Eskelin, widely known as a vanguard improviser with a romantic streak, reveals how boundless imagination bolstered by seasoned workmanship can transcend mere nostalgia.–Troy Collins

http-//pointofdeparture.org/Pod43/PoD43MoreMoments3.html

08/15/13

Ellery Eskelin - Trio New York IIPrime Source

By Steve Greenlee

Laidback, low-key, unassuming—this is how tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin rolls: no small task for a sax-organ-drums trio either, for such combos have a tendency to be hard-grooving, show-offy affairs. But Eskelin’s is a different sort of organ group. The saxophonist, not the organist, is the dominant voice, and the organist, GaryVersace—well, he doesn’t play like your typical jazz organist here. No riffs. No one-bar phrases repeated ad nauseam. He’s more Larry Young than Jimmy Smith.A half-dozen standards make up Trio New York II, recorded in early 2013 as a follow-up to the group’s 2011 effort. This one’s equally stellar. The standard “Midnight Sun,” one of the loveliest songs in jazz, commences with a sax-and-organ duet that sounds more like sax and computer. Versace picks blips and bleeps out of his keys while Eskelin improvises off the chords for nearly three minutes, before they settle into the familiar theme. Gerald Cleaver brings brushes to cymbals, and Versace switches to a church sound. Throughout, rhythm is only hinted at, never stated explicitly.After these nine elevating minutes, Eskelin and Cleaver dive headfirst into a free improv that becomes “Just One of Those Things” only when Versace helps them out with a walking bassline. Eskelin’s tone is warm but tough, and though he respects melody he’s not afraid to break out the dissonance—an appealing compromise ofaccessibility and adventure. Monk’s “We See” is totally deconstructed and reassembled (this time Versace and Cleaver open it; the dueting in this group is equal-opportunity) with a Hammond B-3 that almost sounds like a

Farfisa. “My Ideal” is subdued and gorgeous, with the organ fading in and out, and Versace is so mellow for so much of “After You’re Gone” that you’d be forgiven for forgetting an organ’s in the band. The finale, “Flamingo,” is sheer beauty. After a sax-and-organ intro that brings us full circle, the trio engages in an all-too-brief revelry that sounds like a lazy summer day. Now bring us Trio New York III.Originally published in July/August 2013

8/17/13 Jazz Reviews: Trio New York IIEllery Eskelin - By Steve Greenlee — Jazz Articlesjazztimes.com/articles/97412-trio-new-york-ii-ellery-eskelin 2/4

6/18/13 Free Jazz: Ellery Eskelin Trio - New York II (Prime Source, 2013) *****

TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2013Ellery Eskelin Trio NewYork II (Prime Source, 2013) *****“A free approach to the Great American Songbook”By Monique Avakian

If there is a band to check out in 2013, this is IT. I’m tempted to stop right there, or at least toss in a spoiler alert. Half the grand delight of listening to this album is the process of discovery as you uncover the multilayered subtlety of this group’s free, beyond~interpretative stance. Another tasty slice of major happiness derives from recovering your relationship with some kickass standards through this visceral free improv. The Ellery Eskelin New York Trio II embodies the ideal of the avant aesthetic: forward movement, deeply rooted, and set free with honest emotion.

Overall, I would describe this trio as precise, kinesthetically supple and incredibly feline. You may not know they’re in the room until you feel their whiskers, but they already know all about you and everything you dreamed of before breakfast.

On this album, you’ll be treated to three musicians who take their respective instruments each and together into the wild and unexpected.

Gary Versace expresses feelings and thoughts with the Hammond B3 Organ in a way that is simply unprecedented. What a supercool style! During the first listen, I didn’t even know he was playing a B3; I thought he was playing multiple synthesizers and getting the sonic variety out of electronic dials and settings. In Versace’s words: (The organ is the) “first kind of real time synthesizer. You can change the sound as you’re playing, you can hold a note, there’s vibrato, there’s air moving through it…(and I can) change phrase lengths and chord lengths as I see fit.” (*)

Gerald Cleaver is one of those super highly evolved drummers who can play anything he needs to super soft. If you’ve ever been anywhere near a drum kit, you know how difficult that is. Cleaver takes this concept even further through his careful choices of not playing. Whoever heard of a drummer not playing ?!? Especially when you reach a technical level, like Cleaver, where you can pretty much play anything. You could learn a lot about musicianship by studying his choice of silence. In Cleaver’s words: “I try and swing and try to do the things that feel the best….the idea of swinging is one of connectedness and having a real affinity for the piece, whatever it is.” (*)

And Ellery Eskelin, ooooh! His work on the tenor sax (now playing a 1927 Conn.) is complex and experimental, yet completely engaging and intimate. Conceptually, he’s all about paradox and sparking wonder, and this is made all the more appealing due to his natural and relaxed fearlessness. Even though he can knock your socks off with rapid, inventive runs, he never runs all over you. His phrasing is intuitive and often subliminal. Ellery Eskelin brings you inside—DEEP into the living breath of sound.

As for playing live with the trio, in Eskelin’s words: “We know that there are probably six or eight tunes that we might incorporate in some way, without me prescribing any kind of a treatment or rules at all for how those may or may not happen. It’s simply a matter of realtime musical negotiation between us, listening very hard to each other.” (**)

Standout Tunes:The Midnight SunLike sparkles on water, sun and moon dance through threaded ideas traded with echoes. Some kind of unity forms from duality, and I am feeling the blazing sun late at night. This trio achieves a sonic representation of emotional metaphor so central to the tune that at first listen I literally felt the sun and moon simultaneously appear without knowing anythingabout this song, including not having read the title – (! ! !) – I’m not making this up! The emotive quality engendered by the trio’s take on this lovely standard is completely involving. Wait a minute….is that stardust on my sleeve?!?!

We SeeThis take on We See is like having déjà vu while simultaneously hallucinating inside a parallel universe. This version is out, yet NOT closed off inside some phony fortress with a thousand doors locking you out. The Eskelin Trio is so open and inviting, even when the swing is sonically invisible, you feel it. And the BeBop confidence and rhythmic forcefulness are there, too, yet reached through the opposing sensibility of exaggerated pianissimos and small, subtle crescendos. Case in point: Versace gives that B3 ZAP chord every once in awhile, but he does this * s * o * f * t * l * y * as if using volume itself to make a rhythmic statement (?!)www.freejazzblog.org/2013/06/ellery-eskelin-trio-new-york-ii-prime.html