Edward Simon, Scott Colley, and Brian Blade Present Three Visitors, out November 1 via GroundUP Music

Three generation-defining musician-composers explore postbop, the avant-garde, even neo-soul throughout performances of intense communication, featuring special guests Chris Potter and Becca Stevens

To Three Visitors — that’s pianist Edward Simon, bassist Scott Colley, and drummer Brian Blade — the concept of visitation has many facets, and all of them are traversed to stunning effect on the trio’s new album from GroundUP Music, arriving November 1. 

To start, there’s the idea of music moving these players beyond the physical plane to a place of spiritual insight. Then there is the notion of influence — how these three fellow travelers disappear into improvisation that allows them to visit the vast scope of musical heroes who’ve impacted them so deeply. Along the way, Three Visitors’ remarkably gifted musical friends — like the saxophonist Chris Potter and the singer, songwriter and musician Becca Stevens — drop in for visits of their own. 

Then there is the special, almost serendipitous feeling that arises when this trio is able to come together — as if visiting one another on leave from their overpacked schedules. These men are some of the most revered and in-demand artists in improvised music, so when they do make time for Three Visitors, the chemistry feels momentous, even magical. Upon their return to live performance following the pandemic, Colley says, “I wanted to jump out of my skin because, within the first few notes, I knew this is somehow in my DNA. I’m connected with these guys because there’s such a long history musically, within so many different projects.”

“I know these folks,” he adds. “There’s no words necessary.”

The trio’s soul-deep kinship, which defines their performances on this new release, stretches back three decades, to groups also featuring masters like the saxophonist David Binney and the guitarist Adam Rogers. This was one of jazz’s finest — if still-unheralded — generations, who achieved breathtaking new heights in ensemble cohesion night after night at small rooms in the West Village.

It was during this transformative period in jazz’s timeline that Simon, Colley and Blade began to develop their singular bond as a trio, operating within quartets and quintets. Or as Blade puts it, “There was always — even before we knew it — the existence of the trio as a microorganism within a larger context.” 

So how do you define the alchemy heard throughout Three Visitors? Colley likes to describe their accord as one of quiet, focused intensity and a kind of creative telepathy; he also cites trios led by Ahmad Jamal and Bill Evans, and the triumvirate of Paul Motian, Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell, as touchstones for the band’s mission of communication that is beyond words. 

“What makes it really special in this group is that appreciation for space and high-level interactivity,” adds Simon, “a very intentional and deep listening that’s taking place as we’re improvising.”

Blade concurs. “I think of iron sharpening iron,” he begins. “Even if we’re playing free, we’re still composing, and we’re always leaning towards each other — leaning in for the conversation to happen. It’s a privilege to share that trust with someone.”

That thrilling sense of creative democracy also marks the repertoire, which includes contributions from all three members. The aesthetics range from neo-soul-tinged jazz to high-wire postbop to the most adventurous corridors of the avant-garde.  

Simon’s “You Are” is an undeniable summit on Three Visitors — a musical metaphor for the process of self-actualization that rises, crests and falls as one does on their journey toward fulfillment. An empathic trio performance hits a fever pitch during a powerhouse tenor solo from Chris Potter, punctuated by thrilling spikes of orchestral strings. “My wife talks to me about ‘the pen of a ready writer,’ and I feel like Chris’ ink is always flowing,” says Blade. “He does not hold back, and that is a beautiful thing.” Jana Dagdagan delivers a spoken-word verse that Simon wrote — “a voice,” the pianist says, “seemingly coming from another realm, narrating the qualities of self.”   

Another of the project’s most moving tracks is “I Wanna Be With You,” a collaboration between Simon and Becca Stevens, who contributes lead and harmony vocals as well as original lyrics that explore a love both profound and unspoken. It’s a spellbinding piece, impressively diverse in its influences and textures yet wholly unified in its emotional force, at once thoughtful and sensual. Blade and percussionist Rogério Boccato offer slippery Brazilian-flavored rhythms; Simon’s keys are infused with the Caribbean sound of the steelpan; Stevens, as only she can, melds R&B, jazz, pop and contemporary folk vibes into a sweetly affecting vocal performance. “What she did with this song,” Simon reflects, “I could not even imagine that it would have been this beautiful, to be honest.”

Simon’s lead-off track, “Nostalgia,” a trio performance seamlessly bolstered and accented by strings, is another example of his rare ability to intermingle radiance and melancholy in a single melody. The track carries a potent wistfulness that can conjure up the feeling of changing seasons.  

“Many of the compositions I write are questions that we can play with,” says Colley, whose serenely commanding and melodic sound can evoke Scott LaFaro. “And as a trio, we try to determine the answer.” These tracks range from the elastic swing and darkly inviting harmony of “Ellipsis” to pieces shot through with artful tension, like “Far Rockaway,” the title track and “The Thicket,” whose blend of folk-like directness and improvised openness brings to mind Paul Motian. Andrew Hill’s music, especially how it summons up jazz history on personal, creatively daring terms, is also a great reference for Colley’s offerings. 

Blade’s gorgeous ballad “Kintsukuroi,” with its simple heartrending melody and cloudlike rhythmic approach, takes its name from the Japanese art of restoring broken pottery. The drummer sees Kintsukuroi, with its focus on creating beauty from decay or destruction, as a worthy metaphor for both the process of improvised music and life itself: “This is the trip we’re on, right?” Blade says. “We suffer some blows, but I think we’re being transformed. And what  comes from that repair is something so redeeming, and such a new creation of beauty.”

Throughout Three Visitors, Simon, Colley and Blade build new beauty from the ground up, again and again, track after intensely felt track.

from https://lydialiebman.com