Horn Trios

For all Charles Wuorinen’s longstanding reputation as a modernist, his musical career has more in common with those of Brahms and Beethoven than with any contemporary model. His music, from his earliest pieces through the more recent masterworks, is a body of work as significant as one is likely to encounter. The works on this disc are all trios of diverse combinations, written in the early 1980s, and performed here by the Group for Contemporary Music, the ensemble that Wuorinen co-founded in 1962. The music ranges from the powerfully driven Horn Trio to the unusual and resonant texture of the Trombone Trio.

Charles Lloyd at age 84 remains as spiritually relevant, contemporarily focused, and prolific as ever. Lloyd has played in many configurations including the standard drum-piano-bass-sax quartet but also in quintets that include both piano and guitar as well as his famous quintet, The Marvels, that features two guitarists, one of whom, the renowned guitarist Bill Frisell, along with Frisell’s go-to bassist Thomas Morgan, form the first of three trios in a series of recordings featuring three different trios that Lloyd is releasing in 2022. Lloyd has constantly searched for new contexts in which to deliver his improvised solos and has worked rather regularly with most of the musicians that comprise his vision of the three trios, which interestingly have a guitarist as the only instrumental constant. The second will feature guitarist Anthony Wilson and pianist Gerald Clayton while the third will install guitarist Julian Lage and percussionist Zakir Hussain.

A complete collection of Brahms’s work for trio, illuminating the span of his career in new, Italian-made recordings. Over the course of almost 40 years, the greater span of his career, Brahms composed five trios in different instrumentations.

A complete collection of Brahms’s work for trio, illuminating the span of his career in new, Italian-made recordings. Over the course of almost 40 years, the greater span of his career, Brahms composed five trios in different instrumentations. Whereas he wrote piano sonatas and later symphonies within specific periods of his life, Brahms always returned to songs and to chamber music. The piano is the central, unifying presence in the trios, and often the dynamic engine driving their material forward.

Spirituality has always been at the center of Charles Lloyd's music. The other constant in the octogenarian saxophonist's work is his ability to stretch. Over his career, he's played blues and rock, had funky moments, and, of course, ranged across much of the jazz spectrum. He's added his horn to recordings and live performances by Cannonball Adderley, Joe Sample, The Beach Boys and The Doors. In 1973, after being influenced by the zeitgeist of Indian musicians Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha, Lloyd recorded Geeta, an album that mixed his brand of improvisational free jazz with traditional Indian music.

A complete collection of Brahms’s work for trio, illuminating the span of his career in new, Italian-made recordings. Over the course of almost 40 years, the greater span of his career, Brahms composed five trios in different instrumentations.