Home » Jazz Articles » Catching Up With » Works—The Brooklyn Trio Finding Freedom in Space
Works—The Brooklyn Trio Finding Freedom in Space

I wanted to create something bigger than just having a band. Something that served this tradition of music, this lineage known as jazz.
Rob Garcia
Daniel Kelly
piano
Michel Gentile
flute
Rob Garcia
drumsb.1969
In that time, they have been plenty busy, Works is a vibrant working outfit, with over 250 concerts through their nonprofit Connection Works, collaborations with artists from

Joe Lovano
drumsb.1952
Mivos Quartet
various
Dave Liebman
saxophoneb.1946

Sheila Jordan
vocals1928 - 2025
Each member of Works brings substantial musical credentials to the group. Gentile studied at the New England Conservatory of Music and has played with

Ray Charles
piano and vocals1930 - 2004

Fred Hersch
pianob.1955

Wynton Marsalis
trumpetb.1961

Diana Krall
piano and vocalsb.1964

Michael Brecker
saxophone, tenor1949 - 2007
"In a trio setting, you can move in any direction or all directions at once," Gentile says. "Everybody in the group is aware of those directions. Sometimes we don't know where things will land with the three of us, and we just go for it."
Their instrumentation of flute, piano and drums without bass creates distinctive textures and opportunities. "Because there's no bassist, there are many more possibilities of grooves, textures, and different ways to go," Garcia says. "Not having a bassist allows the group to avoid falling into typical rhythmic patterns that a jazz group might default to. Daniel has amazing ideas, and we play off each other. Sometimes we want to get into a groove, and we both feel it and then just go with it."
Kelly embraces the musical space: "As a pianist, it's challenging because I want to create an interesting approach. I don't want to just play the bass with my left hand. I want to create something unique."
The album's twelve tracks include deeply personal compositions from each musician. The title track comes from sculptor Jimmy Greenfield's earth-carved piece showing three life-sized men searching. Gentile wrote it as a three-part canon. His "Diary of a Missing Voice" stems from his three-year-old daughter's experience with selective mutism. "She insisted on playing bass notes to a piece I thought I was composing alone," he says. "In the end, she dictated the direction the music took." Another Gentile piece, "When Elephants Mourn Their Dead," considers how these creatures show reverence for their deceased, suggesting lessons about the sanctity of life. Kelly's "Forgotten Memories" uses four independent melody lines, while his "Forest Walk" captures "the relaxing quality" of moving through trees. "Experiment in 5" shifts from lyrical melodies over repeating piano patterns to aggressive full-band rhythmic unisons.
The band waited eleven years between albums partly due to their focus on live performance and grant writing. "Something that happens when you're a nonprofit like Connection Works is that you spend a lot of time writing grants to make the concert series work and to fund special projects," Gentile says. "It seems like every year, we write grants to fund recordings. Then you wait to see what happens with that. If it doesn't come through, we [always] consider doing the project ourselves, but there's another grant coming up, so you try that one."
Four group improvisations close the new album: "Sound Sanctuary" working with overtone patterns, "Gravitas" building from the piano's lowest strings, "Prepared Uncertainty" finding freedom within limits, and "Inverted Cloud" playing with musical perspective. "When you trust the people you're with and trust yourself to know what to do, you don't need to micromanage yourself about what you're going to play," Garcia says. "It's always better that way where you can just be in the moment. I'm listening, and it's just coming out of me. And then I'm just listening to the whole group, or I am the whole group. When that happens, it's like exercising a muscle of getting into that space, into that flow zone."
Kelly puts it simply: "Your life is an improvisation. You're figuring out as you go. You can have plans of what's going to happen, but there are unexpected things that come forward. You change your mind as you learn and grow. And so yeah, improvisation is life, and to do it with these dear friends is a real gift."
Tags
Comments
PREVIOUS / NEXT
Rob Garcia Concerts
Support All About Jazz

Go Ad Free!
To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.
New York City
Concert Guide | Venue Guide | Local Businesses
| More...
