The Joel Frahm Trio - Shades of Sonny, Notes of Joe
The Joel Frahm Trio - Shades of Sonny, Notes of Joe
The Bright Side (Anzic Records, 2021) and Lumination (Anzic Records, 2024)
Music circles know Joel Frahm, a tenor saxophonist, as a durable and dependable musician. He has appeared on many recordings, including those for Laura Kinhan (Avalon, Koch Jazz, 2010), Beat Kaestli (Invitation, Chesky Jazz, 2010); Kurt Elling (1619 Broadway: The Brill Building Project, Concord Jazz, 2012), Janis Siegel (Nightsongs: A Late Night Interlude, Palmetto, 2013), Diane Schuur (I Remember You: With Love to Stan and Frank, Jazzheads, 2014), Brad Mehldau (Finding Gabriel, Nonesuch, 2022), Marina Pacowski (Inner Urge, Summit Records, 2023), and scores more over the past 25 years.
The Joel Frahm Trio, with bassist Dan Loomis, and drummer Ernesto Cervini, is 10 years old and has produced two recordings, The Bright Side and Lumination both released on Anzic Records. The trio developed from the three musicians performing together in Ernesto Cervini’s Quartet and, later, his sextet, Turboprop. This trio recalls those of Sonny Rollins in the 1950s that gave us Way Out West (Contemporary, 1957), A Night at the “Village Vanguard” (Blue Note, 1958), Freedom Suite (Riverside, 1958), and Sonny Rollins - Weaver Of Dreams: The 1959 European Tour Recordings (Resonance Records, 2024). While comparisons and similarities exist, Frahm’s Trio is all its own.
While credited to Frahm alone, make no mistake—The Bright Side is a saxophone trio recording, with an emphasis on trio. Bassist Loomis and drummer Cervini are equal partners. Frahm guides this recording, all original compositions, that look back and acknowledge this history of the tenor saxophone and its place in the minimally harmonic-driven trio setting. Adjectives like "stark" or "barren" often burden the saxophone trio. Better descriptors like “free” or “liberated” might serve the performances better. It is a harmonically and melodically wide-open sound that able saxophonist bring to performances sans piano or guitar. It is this emancipation that Frahm brings with this trio. “Blow Papa Joe” winks at Joe Henderson and his landmark The State of the Tenor, Vols. 1 & 2 (Blue Note Records, 1986) and the Complete An Evening With Joe Henderson (Red Records, 1987). “Thinking of Benny” acknowledges tenor great Benny Golson and his creative music making. Frahm can play with great muscularity and gentleness, both in evidence on this recording.The Bright Side is a potent statement by Frahm of how he sees the state of the saxophone trio.
The Joel Frahm Trio’s follow-up to The Bright Side finds the group moving beyond the past toward a new trio language that skirts the confines of the 32-bar standard, extending, but not too far, into the freedom expressed by Ornette Coleman’s Golden Circle trios. Frahm ensures he keeps both his swing and the melodic intent of his playing. This emerges fully on “Disco Nern” with its tidy staccato figure and piquant Loomis bass solo. “Kern You Dig It” is an “All The Things You Are” contrafact that Frahm gives a breathy, breezy treatment. “Vesper Flights” could just as well refer to the James Bond libation from Casino Royale were it not so seated in the vernacular of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (Impulse Records, 1965). “False Spring” is that brand of hard bop soul jazz that could you could hear during the hallucination scene of an avant garde movie from the 1960s. Loomis and Cervini are exceptional, causing this trio to bloom fully. And, in the middle, is Frahm and his trio’s charm: instant synthesis that defies the uncertainty principle.