tres hongos - where my dreams go to die
or pick up a digital copy through prom night records (click here)
jacob wick - trumpet
tres hongos is:
marc riordan - piano
frank rosaly - drums
reviews:
from lyn horton, contributor to jazztimes
from peter margasak of the chicago reader
hear our first meeting, in march 2011 at the hideout:
a recent review from mr. clifford allen:
Tres Hongos (three swine) is a free improvisation trio comprised of Chicagoans Frank Rosaly (drums) and Marc Riordan (piano), and Oakland-based trumpeter/sound artist Jacob Wick (ex-NYC/Chicago). This disc, comprising five pieces, is their first release and balances well the tension between group listening and players pushing back and challenging one another. Of the three, Wick is probably the least well-known; his disassembled solo trumpet performances, swarm, are enigmatic and frustrating but bear the fruit of an artist in self-dialogue who is not afraid to fail (I witnessed it in November 2010 in a cold outdoor space). He’s also worked in various ensembles with bassoonist Katherine Young, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, clarinetist Jeff Kimmel, and others. Wick belongs to the “micro” school of trumpet playing and builds a language from crumpled fluffs, circular breathing, percussive wind and valve actions, whistles and guffaws. He’s a bit more fragile in his approach than fellow travelers Nate Wooley, Taylor Ho Bynum and Peter Evans, and less linear, but as an extended technician his reach is impressive.
On “God’s Girlfriend,” coiled inhalations and exhalations kiss and sweep alongside Riordan’s plaintive right-hand accents and whining patter from Rosaly’s hands, sticks, and surfaces. The trio takes an already somewhat fragmentary language and parses it further, piano and percussion emphasizing both space and seemingly disconnected, random gestures while Wick flutters, scrawls and crinkles in the path of a drunken moth. “Champagne Bayside” begins with fluent skitter, Wick both steely and limpid in runs that soon smear themselves in taut shrikes, spurred by Riordan’s jagged circularity and high-volume athleticism. The latter is somewhat reminiscent of European masters like Alexander von Schlippenbach and Irène Schweizer (or contemporary American pianist John Blum) in his quick, edgy constructions. Sure, he’s more pointillist than any of those three, but poised between robustness and hesitancy, his art is interesting. The piece is a series of soli, duos and trios, although each of these sections is arrived at spontaneously. Piano and trumpet play off of one another with crackling, muscular brilliance, while Wick and Riordan pair together especially well and scale brightly against Rosaly’s agitated breaks, needles and subterfuge.
Though there isn’t a clear thematic thrust for Tres Hongos to reference, they work within a very physical mode of improvisation that is literally sparse and retains a lot of energy. Their rapport seems to be based on achieving copacetic balance through regular undermining. Rosaly bashes or stops playing altogether against one of Riordan’s “prettier” phrases, while Wick might pick up a stately, clarion call only to let it fall flat. The closing “Franklin at Night” begins with gulps and scribble, Wick’s terse, insectile ululations a focal point amidst arching chords and heaving rattle. One might ask what separates Tres Hongos from a range of equally facile contemporary improvisation trios. The answer is that, rather than being polite, they go for punching one another in the arms just enough while retaining poise. That's not an easy task at all.
--Clifford Allen, 4/20/12
from lyn horton:
In a trio collaboration with Jacob Wick on trumpet, Marc Riordan on piano and Frank Rosaly on drums, Tres Hongos demonstrates that improvised music from musicians, born
within the last four decades, recalls as much from the past as it
projects innovation and awareness of the present. The youthfulness of
the musicians gives the music its rawness, its edge, its angularity, its
penchant for sound examination as opposed to grandiloquent, lilting
lyricism, for instance.
The
inexorable amount of detailed expression that documents the energy that
goes into maintaining restraint gives the music its edge. It is no
mystery that muscle and breathing control are components of managing the
non-explosive retention within the playing. No time is wasted to
clarify that the trio is going to pull back and articulate no further
than the tremolos or choruses that Wick repeats on his brass instrument
or the notes Riordan plays mechanistically on the piano keys or the
snare rolls, snaps, and cymbal hisses that Rosaly sculpts in the most
high-tempo moments on the album. Volume is permitted, as in “Champagne
Bayside;” but that does not mean that the overall sound steps out of the
boundaries that were set from the very beginning.
This
music is linked to the classical compositions of the last fifty years
that includes that of John Cage, Morton Feldman, George Crumb and the
Minimalists. Nonetheless, what is taken out of that music is naturally
incorporated into a new process that allows the flow to happen rather
than be irrevocably metered out.
The
trio exhibits a sense of the passage of discrete units of time which
intensifies the fact that no resonance contributes to the ongoing sonic
unwinding. “God’s Girlfriend” is a prime example of the players’
complete introversion: trumpeter Wick plays his mouthpiece; Riordan
interjects measurable silence between short chords or briefly rolled
phrases; Rosaly barely touches the cymbal or the snare and any potential
for ringing is damped and transformed quickly as he moves from place to
place within the percussion spectrum.
The
cover photo is called “Mojave Desert, California (Bottle of Piss)” from
a series by Chicago photographer, Greg Stimac. That the members of the
trio believe that this picture is simply a “strong stand-alone image”
and lends no particular meaning to the music that is played on Tres Hongos testifies to the same kind of provocative character in the title: for the “bad” translation of the spanish ‘Tres Hongos’ is 'Three Fungi.’
If
there is any meaning to be had, though, the subtitle speaks the loudest
of all: ‘Where My Dreams Go to Die.’ The evanescence of dreams is
similar to the evanescence of improvised music. Neither a dream nor the
music ever dies; neither can be replicated and once experienced simply becomes a part of the omnipresent universe.
--Lyn Horton 2/24/12
--Lyn Horton 2/24/12
here's a review from peter margasak:
Two members of relatively new improvising trio Tres Hongos are staples of the local jazz scene, but here they show off skills that aren't the ones for which they're widely known. Marc Riordan has made his name as a drummer, working with folks like Josh Berman and Jeff Kimmel, but in Tres Hongos he sticks to piano, which he's been playing in public more and more; Frank Rosaly, a masterful pulse-oriented drummer in countless ensembles and a bold explorer of electroacoustic approaches as a solo artist, plays his usual instrument but does it largely free of tempo and meter, building his parts from explosive outbursts, pointillistic patter, and frictive shading. Trumpeter Jacob Wick—a Chicago native based in Oakland—rounds out the group with playing that's as broad-minded and versatile as anything his bandmates can do. On the forthcoming Where My Dreams Go to Die (Prom Night/Molk) their easygoing rapport allows them to shift moods and textures without a hiccup—the album's five fully improvised tracks flow naturally in and out of energy music, self-contained tunelike snippets, gestural abstraction, and buoyant free-bop. It's easy to hear in real time how a new idea thrown into the mix by a single player opens up an area of exploration for the whole trio, and they all dig into it before one of them edges toward a new destination.
—Peter Margasak 1/3/12
