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Trio Grande At Magy's Farm
Magy's Farm
Dromara, N. Ireland
November 28, 2022
Set in the rolling drumlins of County Down with farmland rising and falling on all sides, a couple of weathered donkeys looking on and the Mourne Mountains rising majestically ahead, Magy's Farm, it is safe to say, is not quite what New York jazz musicians envisage when they come to play in Ireland. From a distance the venue looks like just another farm outhouse—a white pebble pressed into the green and purple landscape.
For Trio Grande, aka
Will Vinson
saxophone, altob.1977
Gilad Hekselman
guitarb.1983
Nate Wood
drumsb.1979
Seating forty, including a small gallery for ten tops, the floor is the stage, a small but adequate area for musicians. Its intimacy is such that front rowers at Magy's Farm gigs can occasionally experience the informal baptism of musicians' spray from trombones or saxophones. In certain ways, the space is like a throwback to the small, rural Irish churches of centuries past, those rudimentary, spiritual beacons for the faithful.
On this pitch-black night, with fog reducing visibility on the rough ribbons of country roads—an absolute rabbit warren of a system—to a handful of metres, a sat nav was a handy tool for any first-time visitors. Though as all roads in these parts seemingly lead to every other road, a mazy journey was practically guaranteed. The faith of this Monday-night jazz congregation, however, was amply rewarded by Vinson, Hekselman and Wood's outstanding performance.
Trio Grande's debut album provided the bulk of the evening's tunes, though it was Hekselman's folksy "Long Way From Home," the opening track from Far Star (2022) his tenth album as leader—and first on Edition Records—that opened the set.
While Vinson comped on electric keys and Wood simultaneously juggled a skittering brushes groove with his right hand and a pulsing electric bass rhythm with his left, Hekselman unveiled the sort of finely sculpted solo, melodious yet adventurous, that is his stock in trade. At times you could feel his
John Scofield
guitarb.1951
Kurt Rosenwinkel
guitarb.1970
Greg Osby
saxophoneb.1960
Chris Potter
saxophone, tenorb.1971
A highlight of Trio Grande's set came with Hekselman's joyous tribute to his son, "Elli Yeled Tov"—imagine Stevie Wonder's '70s band doing a calypso and you would not be too far off. Built around an infectious looped guitar melody, played initially by the guitarist and Vinson in unison, the trio spun a sunny weave of overlapping lines and melodic call-and-response for ten minutes, fully twice the album version's length. Hekselman tapped his pedal board to conjure a skewed, steel-drum-esque tone in a scintillating intervention, though pick of the solo spots was Wood's dextrous kit-groove-cum-bass solo, which was truly something to behold.
Wood has stepped into the hefty shoes vacated by original Trio Grande sticks-man
Antonio Sanchez
drumsb.1971
Kneebody
band / ensemble / orchestraA brace of contrasting tunes by Vinson followed. The slower-paced "Oberkampf" married melodic lines with a guitar-led rock ostinato to powerful effect, while the knotty funk of "Resting Jazz Face" from Tripwire (Whirlwind Recordings, 2022) featured terrific solos from Vinson and the remarkable Wood, whose groove never wavered in a flurry of polyrhythms. The trio lowered the temperature on "Will You Let It?," a delicate ballad of bluesy hue in which Hekselman and Vinson dovetailed tenderly.
The temporary reverie was shattered by a thunderous drum-and-bass intro that launched a searing slice of jazz-fusion for the 21st century. With Wood feverishly stoking the trio's boiler, Hekselman and Vinson both stretched out in grand style before reuniting on the jaunty head. This may have been a new number as another Trio Grande album is in the works, the musicians having spent the day before in Dublin's Camden Studio.
There being no point in stepping outside into the cold just to re-enter for an encore, the trio dispensed with the formality in good humor and signed off with a gorgeously understated interpretation of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy." Caressing the melody faithfully, the trio only took wings in the thrilling home stretch.
A little earlier, Hekselman had paid tribute to Magy's Farm founders and proprietors, Maggie Doyle, a former BBC Radio Ulster programme editor, and her husband,
Linley Hamilton
trumpetb.1965
Tags
Live Review
trio Grande
Ian Patterson
United Kingdom
Belfast
Will Vinson
Gilad Hekselman
Nate Wood
John Scofield
Kurt Rosenwinkel
Greg Osby
Chris Potter
Antonio Sanchez
Kneebody
linley hamilton
Magy's Farm
Dromara
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