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Trio Grande: Three instruments, three nationalities, one supergroup
Courtesy Dave Bush
It’s a bit like playing in duo, except that there’s three of us, so there's that much more personality in it
—Will Vinson
As close as a jazz drummer can maybe come to being a celebrity today,
Pat Metheny
guitarb.1954
Antonio Sanchez
drumsb.1971
The melodic center of the eclectic trio act, British saxophonist
Will Vinson
saxophone, altob.1977
The term "bass-less" however might be conceived as somewhat deceiving. After all,
Gilad Hekselman
guitarb.1983
Ferenc Nemeth
drumsb.1976
Chris Potter
saxophone, tenorb.1971
John Raymond
trumpetb.1985
Aaron Parks
drumsb.1983
After having first gotten to know each other better on the cast's entertaining Vinson-led debut recording It's alright With Three, Trio Grande sees the three reconvening for an even more confident demonstration of modern soundscapes blended with catchy hooks—all against the backdrop of the members' deep roots in jazz. In a remotely held conversation across four continents, the three musicians spoke to All About Jazz, among other things, about what sparked the trio's creation, their respective roles in the group and how an airport and GarageBand (the software) inspired a composition on their new album.
All About Jazz: Could you talk about how the three of you first got together?
Will Vinson: We got together as a trio three years ago. I was approached by Criss Cross's Gerry Teekens to do a record under my name and I was kind of in the process of recording and assembling the groups for Four Forty One at the time so I didn't want to do anything that involved piano. And since things with Gerry are often somewhat last minute, I didn't have a lot of time to do much planning. But it just so happened that I'd just been to Cornelia Street Café [Jazz venue situated in Greenwich Village, New York, that closed in 2019] to see Gilad [Hekselman] and Antonio [Sanchez] play in a trio with
Becca Stevens
vocals
Paul Motian
drums1931 - 2011
Bill Frisell
guitar, electricb.1951
Joe Lovano
drumsb.1952
Antonio Sanchez: We had so much fun the first time around that we decided to keep at it, but that It would be a collective effort where everybody would bring tunes and be part of the production and arranging concept.
AAJ: Had you played together before, in a different context?
Gilad Hekselman: Yeah, I played in Will's band for quite a bit and him and I played together in
Ari Hoenig
drumsb.1973
AAJ: Were you sure from the start that it was going to be a bass-less affair?
WV: Yes. The bass-less thing for me is kind of an attempt to throw open the textures somewhat. To allow more dramatic changes in texture than you usually have with a bass. I love bass players as much as anybody, truly, but often the bassist's role is to hold things down and I wanted a situation where things could be held down but turn on a dime at any moment. I thought that removing the bass could be a way to do that. Of course, Gilad is the perfect guy for that. He's got this incredible skill on the guitar to be able to occupy enough of the bass role to satisfy that need without just playing the bass lines or replacing the bass. He has this kind of nimbleness and ability to really change direction dramatically at any moment in an interactive way. It's a bit like playing in duo, except that there's three of us (laughs), so there's that much more personality in it.
AS: We knew that Gilad was going to take on most of the bass responsibilities with this really cool concept that he does, where he plays bass and guitar simultaneously. At the same time, it's not a way of playing where you can be sure that the bass will always be there. That's what makes it much more interesting. It makes us play completely differently. Musically it's a very different way of approaching things and it's this kind of configuration and playing that definitely keeps you on your toes!
GH: I was already playing around with the approach of having to cover the bass in my guitar playing at the time. Not trying to be a bassist per se, but I got called for this role quite a bit, for projects such as Real Feels or
Jaques Schwarz-Bart
saxophoneAAJ: Can you talk about the different compositions on this album? Were they written explicitly for this project?
GH: No, none of mine were written just for this project. "Elli Yeled Tov" is the only one that comes close. It wasn't written explicitly for this project, but it came to me at around the time we were deciding what to record. I remember writing the song at the airport while playing around with GarageBand.
WV: Some of mine were and some were not. One of them, "Boogaloo," appears on 4 41 and "Upside" appears on an older record of mine called Perfectly out of Place (5Passion, 2016) . There was one that was written specifically for this album and that's "Oberkampf."
AS: Mine already existed, but some of them didn't really have a home yet. They weren't in the same line of what I've been doing with my band, Migration. So they were just lying around and waiting to be recorded in some other context. "Northbound" was penned a couple of years ago, when I did a run at the Jazz Standard with
Chris Potter
saxophone, tenorb.1971
Donny McCaslin
saxophone, tenorb.1966
Matt Brewer
bassb.1983
Joe Lovano
drumsb.1952
John Patitucci
bassb.1959
David Binney
saxophone, altob.1961
Ben Monder
guitarb.1962
Matt Brewer
bassb.1983
AAJ: How much time did you have playing together and working out the tunes before getting into the studio to record them?
WV: I'm going to say 90 minutes, something like that. We did a brief rehearsal at my house.
GH: Yeah, it was only one longer rehearsal. One of the cool things with this band is that we don't play anything extremely complicated—besides the fact my colleagues in the band or extremely skilled musicians anyways. They can destroy (in a good way) any piece of music that's put in front of them. But essentially, nothing in the music is extremely complex, it's more about having a good time, finding space and sounds together. Everything about making this record was super easy. We spent two days at Samurai studio recording, eating, chilling, recording some more and that was it. Also, there's something about not being the bandleader that kind of takes away some of the pressure and makes everything a little more comfortable. You share the pressure instead. Even if it had gone terribly wrong, we would have split the responsibility and stress.
AS: We recorded with the very skilled engineer Mike Marciano. It was a very easy session because everybody plays so great and they're such cool people. Simply a fun, effortless session.
AAJ: What inspired your respective compositions?
AS: "Northbound" was something I wanted to write that would be fun to play, that was not too hard. Because all my material lately with Migration is extremely intricate, with a lot of orchestration, many parts, long structures. I wanted to break out of that and write something that would make up about one page and have enough on its bones to be effective and fun to play. "Gocta" was inspired by an amazing waterfall that my wife
Thana Alexa
vocalsGH: "Elli Yeled Tov" in Hebrew means "Elli is a good boy," Elli being the name of my son. Like many of my tunes I start out with a lyric idea; you can kind of hear it on the recording on this record. "Will You Let it" is an older tune of mine from the record Hearts Wide Open (Le Chant du Monde, 2011). Here also, it's a line in the song. I don't always write entire lyrics for a song, but many times, when I look for a melody, I'll think of some words that seem appropriate and they'll help me come up with a melody. The general idea of the lyric is, like the title of that record, about a heart opening; choosing love when you see it, if you're able to (laughs). "Scoville" is dedicated to
John Scofield
guitarb.1951
Brad Mehldau
pianob.1970
WV: As I'd mentioned, "Boogaloo" and "Upside" were pre-existing, but as far as "Oberkampf" goes, I was going for a kind of anthemic composition which I didn't previously have in my written repertoire. Sometimes when there's something missing you just have to take care of it. I also very much had Gilad's sound and Antonio's groove in mind for that one.
AAJ: How much overdubbing was done on this record?
GH: Most of it was live. Sometimes we felt like something needed more harmony, so we put down a Rhodes or another guitar. I think there's one tune on there where I put down the bass separately and we also added clapping and some other things, but the great thing is that we can also play it all live, maybe slightly more naked, but between us three we can cover the necessary ground.
VW: Yeah, there's a significant amount of overdubbing. But we were also aware of the fact that we wanted to tour this music. So we kind of had it in our minds that whatever overdubbing we do, it had to be something that would be somewhat replicable via looping or such on stage.
AAJ: This question is directed toward Antonio Sanchez—besides your own output, solo or with Migration, you've been an active and fixed member of
Pat Metheny
guitarb.1954
AS: I've been very lucky to be part of Pat's circle of trusted musical friends for about 18 to 19 years now and it's always amazing to play with him. But at the time when I was doing this record with Will and Gilad, my activities with Pat weren't too strenuous. We had already finished touring with
Gwilym Simcock
pianob.1981
Linda May Han Oh
bass, acousticb.1984
AAJ: Gilad Hekselman, you've had many outings and opportunities now where you hold down the bass and improvise on guitar simultaneously. You already mentioned
John Raymond
trumpetb.1985
Ferenc Nemeth
drumsb.1976
Chris Potter
saxophone, tenorb.1971
GH: I guess one big difference is that Will plays keys, since he's a great pianist too. It's nice to sometimes have to worry about less. In Real Feels I'm like an organ, you know? I keep the bass, I strike the chords, I play solos; sometimes I feel like a two-handed orchestra. It's a lot but it's very fun and I wouldn't do it if I didn't love the challenge. But with Trio Grande we can really create beautiful harmony and I get a break, too. The Ferenc stint is a whole other thing. He uses a vocoder and can thereby imitate an entire orchestra only via his voice. ZuperOctave is somewhat similar to Trio Grande, in how
Aaron Parks
drumsb.1983
AAJ: Do you feel unbound or more constrained without the bass?
GH: It's both. It's constrained when I have to lay things down, play a groove or play a fixed part of the arrangement. On the other hand, if no one's playing the harmony, I can literally do whatever I want, as long as it makes sense musically. If I can give Antonio cues to follow, that can be really fun. I can change they keys, vamp on a section—do a bunch of different things. And Antonio is really open to that and pays attention.
AAJ: Now that touring is pretty much off the table for the time being, how do you plan on bringing the music to an audience, other than via the album recording itself? Are there any plans for live streaming events? Had you originally planned on touring?
VW: Prior to the Pandemic hitting Gilad and his family had temporarily relocated to Tel Aviv. Myself and my wife very abruptly left New York in March, when my wife was seven months pregnant, for obvious reasons, so we're currently all over the place and therefore can't do a live streaming event. We had originally planned on touring and we do still plan on touring!
GH: When we first made this record were hoping to go touring and already made some specific plans and dates, but in February/early March it of course became clear that touring would be off the table for quite some time, so we almost gave up on it. I hope that this record does well enough to still be on people's minds when they're booking and planning festivals and venues again. But for now, the record's all there is. We aren't able to do any streaming since we're currently all living in different parts of the planet. Will is in Australia, I'm in Tel Aviv (although I'll be back in New York soon) and I believe Antonio is still in Mexico. We did however put together a little video for "Elli Yeled Tov," despite the distance!
Tags
Interview
Friedrich Kunzmann
trio Grande
pat metheny
Antonio Sanchez
Will Vinson
Gilad Hekselmann
Ferenc Nemeth
Chris Potter
John Raymond
Aaron Parks
Becca Stevens
Paul Motian
Bill Frisell
joe lovano
ari hoenig
Jaques Schwartz-Bart
Donny McCaslin
Matt Brewer
Joe Lovano
John Patitucci
Dave Binney
Ben Monder
Thana Alexa
John Scofield
brad mehldau
Gwilym Simcock
Linda Oh
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