An unprecedented trio, full of history and very pertinent, which triangulates distinct and intersecting trajectories that have in the multiplicity of jazz an open field for points of contact and courageous escape. Avan Mendoza is one of the most relevant guitarists of our time, the result of a language that continually opens up new spaces of action, freeing itself from its academic training and taking in languages that range from the most exploratory rock to the viscerality of the blues, noise and, of course, jazz. Free and fiery, her music embodies all of this in an outpouring of technique and spirit without sterile and vain virtuosity, but rather in an expressiveness made up of riffs and lyrical harmonies, torrents of noise and improvised inflections aimlessly born of will. With solo albums where she reveals herself through songs felt in the distortion and in her sharp voice – listen to the laments and exaltations of ‘The Circular Train’ – or in the leadership of the intemperate rock of Unnatural Ways, she has embarked on countless collaborations with Marc Ribot’s quartet, Bill Orcutt’s guitar quartet and names like Ikue Mori, Matana Roberts, Carla Bozulich or Fred Frith, on a more or less permanent basis and with labels such as Tzadik, Weird Forest or Clean Feed.
Older Brad Jones is a bassist and educator whose work has mostly revolved around jazz on its most diverse fronts. Originally from New York, Jones’ career stretches back to the mid-1980s, with a regular presence to this day in the influential The Jazz Passengers, a changing combo from the city’s East Village scene, where the likes of Curtis Fowlkes and John Zorn have played. Before the turn of the century, he formed his AKA Alias and his Brad Jones, and more recently he’s invested in the group Avant Lounge, in addition to the usual list of collaborations, which includes Ornette Coleman, Elvin Jones and Elvis Costello. Absolute and radiant know-how.
A little older, but with an eternally youthful aura, Hamid Drake is practically a living legend of drums and percussion. Gathering influences and materials from Afro-Cuban, Caribbean, Indian or African music in various latitudes, Drake has been developing a plural and ever-expanding language since the 1970s, in a blessed craft that has had totemic figures such as Peter Brötzmann, William Parker, Don Cherry or Michael Zerang as recurring partners, in a vast list that, in recent times, continues to grow alongside other generations with musicians such as Luís Vicente or Joshua Abrahams. BS
