" data-original-title="" title="">Lennart Heyndels on double bass and additional electronics, the trio's half-hour concert gave a taster of a project that will see official album release early in 2025. Beginning with a reworking of Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Afternoon On A Hill," the trio navigated a world of dreamy soundscapes and spare pianistic lyricism punctuated by crackling static, drone, ethereal vocals and minimalist rhythmic pulses relayed between piano and bass.

Cassiers' delivery of Dickinson's "Hope Is The Thing With Feathers" morphed from an edgy, electronically filtered recital—set against rumbling left-hand piano and fast-throbbing bass—to sung lines to the lightest of accompaniment.

The trio concluded with Parker's "Inventory," its interpretation as brief and as beguiling as the poem itself. Beuvens' gently sweeping lines were echoed in the bass as Cassiers sang the witty, bitter-sweet stanzas. It was all over in the blink of an eye, the applause reviving a few nodding heads in the front row who had most likely surrendered to jetlag and a late night. To paraphrase Parker, "One thing I am wiser to know, if sleep beckons, never sit in the front row."

Wajdi Riahi Trio

A Steinway is no guarantee that a pianist will sound good—that requires chops and material. Tunisia-born pianist Wajdi Riahi has both. His trio with bassist Basile Rahola and drummer Pierre Hurty came together in 2020, debuting with Mhamdeya (Fresh Sounds, 2022) and following up with Essia on the same label the year after. This half-hour set, which drew mostly from the latter album, showcased an elegant trio with a persuasive personal sound that owes much to Riahi's Tunisian roots.

Classical, hymnal and North African folk influences combined seamlessly in the opening number "Inel Blues," which grew from gradual, measured steps, via a caressing bass solo, to flowing release. If there were shades of