Trio Beyond is the name of the group that played at Queen Elizabeth's Hall in London, 2004.
Jack DeJohnette initiated a project to pay tribute to the late
Tony Williams' Lifetime -- with the late
Larry Young on organ and guitarist
John McLaughlin, all three were
Miles alumni -- a band that, along with the
Miles Davis band, spearheaded the jazz-rock fusion era.
DeJohnette replaced
Williams in the
Davis group, and
John Scofield is also a
Miles alumnus;
Larry Goldings had been approached by
Williams in 1997 to put together an organ trio with a similar concept to
Lifetime;
Williams passed away shortly thereafter. The results on this double-disc album, Saudades, are explosive, dynamic, and utterly compelling. The repertoire comes from
Lifetime's songbook.
Spectrum: The Anthology and the intense stunner of a set closer "Emergency" come from the band's debut album of the same name, and two more pieces,
Young's "Allah Be Praised" and
John Coltrane's "Big Nick" come from
Turn It Over, the second
Lifetime disc.
DeJohnette goes a step further here in featuring
Davis' "Seven Steps to Heaven" in the program. The album the tune draws its title from is the first date
Williams appeared on as a member of the trumpeter's group. Also included here is "I Fall in Love Too Easily," which was a staple of the
Davis quintet at the time. "Pee Wee" is a
Williams original scored for the quintet, while "If" is drawn from
Young's classic Blue Note album
Unity. Two of the remaining three tunes -- the title cut and the rocking "Love in Blues" -- were co-composed by
Trio Beyond and
Goldings; "As One" is the other. Musically, this is jazz first and rock second. The readings of both the
Miles tunes and the
Lifetime and
Young material have been deepened by the mature experience of the players, but also nuanced by a deeper understanding of the era and its place in the jazz tradition -- and yes, fusion -- jazz-rock fusion has a certified place in the lineage. The set crackles with freshness and a sense of delight by the players.
Goldings has never sounded looser,
Scofield hasn't played this way since he played with
Davis, and
DeJohnette's sense of space and time, while deeply influenced by
Williams, are his own. The moments on "If," which opens the album, are full of funky grooves by
Goldings who simply juxtaposes his sense of bop phrasing, vanguard eclecticism, and the blues equally. The title cut is deep grooved and edgy, full of knots, twists, and turns.
McLaughlin's "Spectrum" contains all the abstraction of the original and then some.
Scofield uses his guitars as a sound device in addition to their intended purpose, and
Goldings has never had a difficult time playing outside. Disc two kicks off with nearly 13 minutes of "Seven Steps to Heaven." The playing is attentive, finessed, and well rehearsed. The feeling that comes across is certainly different than the acoustic quintet's version but one that is reverent and full of its own sense of mode and harmonic interval development. "Love in Blues" rocks but is all to brief, clocking in at less than five minutes, and "Big Nick" contains within it the same, shifting bluesed-out sense of time that
Lifetime's did.
DeJohnette's sense of groove and ground are impeccable, ad the soloing all around is top-notch. This is one of the finer moments in recent ECM history, and a fitting tribute to
Williams and his contribution to a music that sharply divided "purists' (who still are a pain in the ass in trying to preserve jazz as a museum piece), and those more progressive thinking fans who were -- and are still -- looking for a music that could breathe, engage the culture, and continue to grow. ~ Thom Jurek