Indigo Trio Review by Derek Taylor
Bagatellen
A gathering of friends performing for the first time together as a trio, the Indigo Trio still represents a web of longstanding musical relationships. Bassist Harrison Bankhead and drummer Hamid Drake have been collaborators since they were kids, their most recent recorded work together as the rhythm team for Chicago patriarch Fred Anderson. Flautist Nicole Mitchell’s broken musical bread with both men in her own Black Earth Ensemble and the celebrated recent Chicago ensemble Frequency. Taped live in Montreal and released as part of Greenleaf Music’s Paperback Series of concert recordings, the music comes in frugal cardboard packaging but carries an implicit guarantee in terms of aural satisfaction.
One of the most prevalent aspects of the trio is a shared omnivorous appetite when it comes to stylistic ingredients. Bankhead’s nimble opening arco work on “Welcoming” is classical in cast, vague Arabic sonorities bleeding through in his warmly bowed lines. Mitchell’s incantatory entrance and modulating commentary recalls McCoy Tyner’s African-informed albums for Milestone in the early Seventies. Drake keeps things moving with a steady sluicing of cymbal and snare accents. “Thankfulness” arises directly out of its predecessor, Bankhead laying down a simple strummed vamp and Mitchell lithely soaring against Drake’s bustling polyrhythms. The flautist’s sprawling and sectional “Afrika Rising” weaves through a cycle of permutations, drums and bass shaping a propulsive groove above which flute spirals and dives in dizzying aerial acrobatics. Mitchell brings to mind the Bobbi Humphrey in her blend of agility and melodic acuity while Bankhead and Drake cooperate on a constantly shifting canvas for her aerated sketches. One passage finds the drummer locking on a Rhumba groove and bassist instantly following suit with a sliding ostinato to wonderfully danceable effect.
All three players vocalize in places, most prominently on the contagious reggae dub closer “Stand Strong.” It’s an expected tactic from Hamid whose Sufi chants are a reliable part of his performances, but welcome from the others as well whose untrained voices add to the set’s sense of earthy sincerity. “Forest Light” expounds on Shinto influences as Mitchell channels shakuhachi sounds through wooden flute and Bankhead approximates the brittle tones of koto on bass to the palmed patter of Drake’s frame drum. The three give an extended shout out to hometown stomping grounds on “Velvet Lounge Bounce”, Mitchell’s mercurial flute once again dancing in and out of Drake’s muscular but exacting metrics as Bankhead sustains a blurred pizzicato anchor. This is easily the best flute, bass and drums jazz trio to come along since Andrew Cyrille’s Good to Go with James Newton and Lisle Atkinson released a decade ago. Don’t let the featherweight assumptions often attached to the frontline instrument fool you, Mitchell and her colleagues serve notice of their ability to shake both hips and rafters.
~ Derek Taylor