Can anybody make some recommendations for these New Jazz trios of piano, bass & drums?
GoGo Penguin (Manchester UK) has 4 albums out: Fanfare, V2.0, Man Made Object & A Humdrum Star
The Bad Plus (Mnpls MN) has about 12 albums out!
Can anybody make some recommendations for these New Jazz trios of piano, bass & drums?
GoGo Penguin (Manchester UK) has 4 albums out: Fanfare, V2.0, Man Made Object & A Humdrum Star
The Bad Plus (Mnpls MN) has about 12 albums out!
Big fan of GoGo Penguin. I have seen them live several times now and they always kicked major ass. I would rate their albums:
1 V2.0
2 A Humdrum Star
3 man made Object
4 Fanfare
their albums are basically all in the same "power-jazz" style and they are all good. Melodic piano lines with powerfull modern beats. No improvisation. The last album a Humdrum Star gets a bit more 'trippy'. It took a while to grow on me but now it is one of my favorites.
I'm not a big fan of rating things in order, but this looks about right. Fanfares is a "good potential but they're not quite there yet" kind of debut (probably one factor in the subsequent lineup change). V2.0 was a big leap into their own thing, a revelatory experience and probably still my favorite. I'd put MMO and AHS roughly even with each other in between.Originally Posted by thedunno
Don't know The Bad Plus much, but the newest (Never Stop II) a is pretty impressive debut for the new lineup. The reviews suggest it's a good encapsulation of their overall sound & strengths.
The cover of Aphex Twin's Flim by The Bad Plus is a wonderful achievement - it manages to capture so much of what makes AT's soundscapes exhilarating, & yet at the same time also expands the distinctive style of playing that TBP had just about nailed at the time.
I think they've fallen off a bit from that period, which was their peak - These Are The Vistas is superb, & the follow-up, Give, is a close second.
I like GoGo Penguin, but I think they pretty much did what they could do in their first two albums. The latest lp moves into late-Neil Cowley Trio country - a bit more portentous, a bit "proggy".
If you like these sorts of "muscular" contemporary piano trios, I'd also recommend Michael Wollny's M, &, especially, the brilliant Phronesis, led by double bass maestro Jäsper Høiby.
Seen them some five times, including once with them playing Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi... yes they're excellent
However I tend to think their latest album is a step behind their first three (which I hold equally on the top spot)
::::::::::::::::::::
There is also a German trio that plays equally wonderful to GGP, but I forget its name as I write.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
^^^
"There is also a German trio that plays equally wonderful to GGP, but I forget its name as I write."
Are you thinking of Michael Wollny's Trio [em], Trane?
Michael Wollny
That sounds like wonderful stuff, listening to camples online
What do you recommend -- looks like he has more than a dozen releases
Last edited by rcarlberg; 06-18-2018 at 12:24 PM.
I have tickets to see GoGo Penguin at their 2018 tour finale in Manchester.
Looking forward to it.
For those of you in the UK, the BBC iPlayer has 25-minutes of their outdoor live set from Coventry in late May.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...d-gogo-penguin
Last edited by jcarr73729; 06-19-2018 at 04:58 PM. Reason: update
Not who I was thinking about (and Wollny's trio is Unitedstatian, not German)
Still can't put my finger on it... I mentioned it in the Jazz thread, but I'm too lazy to check out now (lack of time)
EDIT: found them
Triosence
Last edited by Trane; 06-19-2018 at 11:04 AM.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Gogo Penguin - I don't have Farfare but I probably rate the other 3 broadly equally, have seen them twice and they are quite excellent.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
µ
Fanfare doesn't have Nick Blacka on contrabass & bass, but it's sensibly the same sonics, but there are some tracks that are the founding blocks of GGP.
It'll probably sound much the same to you, because it's one more GGP album, but I think it's more special, probably because it's their first & "freshest"
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
I'll check it out.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
Started looking on YT for camples and I really like this track
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
That's pretty typical of their stuff -- muscular piano trio which is informed by a lot of influences outside the jazz world. I find it incredibly intelligent and well-informed.
Maybe my infatuation will fade, but right now they're one of my favorite new discoveries.
The Bad Plus play a lot of jazz versions of modern pop songs -- Nirvana, Tears For Fears, Herb Alpert -- I'm not in love with this side of their oeuvre. They seem well done, but... Herb Alpert? Tears For Fears? Really?
However yesterday I found a release of theirs that I am REALLY DIGGING:
This thing re-imagines much of the piece while still remaining faithful to its intent. It's wildly successful, in my view. Boo-rah!
^^^
These "deconstructions" of pop songs are a major element of what The Bad Plus were up to - sure, some were more successful than others (the first half of Heart of Glass feels like hard going, then things soar in the latter half - & then you realise that soaring was made possible by the earlier work; their cover of Knowing Me, Knowing You is glorious, as, to my ears, is that cover of Flim). I think the point is to bring the more or less discrete building blocks of the songs to the fore, & then to start recombining these components - so, in many ways, similar to what jazz always did in its improvisations around the tunes from the great American song book - but, with The Bad Plus, in a way which is peghaps slightly more akin to what the cubist painters were doing visually, deconstructing the visual representations which compose the "look" of objects...
Trane - I can assure you Wollny, & the members of the original incarnation of the Trio [em] - Eva Krause & Eric Schaefer, were all from Germany (Wollny is from Schweinfurt, Krause from Hamburg, Schaefer from Frankfurt)!
That said, I do think Triossence are in the same ballpark as est & GoGo Penguin!
My bad... I don't know why, but when I checked them out in RYM, I could swear I saw the US flag next to it
it isn't the case, of course.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
I'm enjoying it, I'll pick it up.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
EXCELLENT description of their modus operandi -- and why the Stravinsky re-engineering works so well!
I have the cd of their Rite - but haven't really given it the time it deserves. Thanks to your promptings, I will remedy that as soon as possible!!
New untitled GGP album at home ;;; just as good as the previous four, but nothing new under the sun either
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Sweet
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
A new GoGo Penguin album?
I must look for it.
The question has been answered now, but I'm nevertheless going to put forward another German piano trio that may be of related interest, Trio ELF:
Triosence are fantastic, every album seems to get better for me. Some of their melodies are wonderful. They remind me of EST in places.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks