Triad

Triad

Ropeadope

Leave it to Ropeadope to break the mold. That should come as no surprise to fans of the progressive label. Triad is not only a trio with instrumentation like you’ve never heard but with a debut album that’s so full of stunning surprises, that you’ll be checking your player to ensure you’re still listening to them. The trio is trumpeter Dominick Farinacci, vibraphonist Christian Tamburr, and accordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman. They hail from London. Yes, the instrumentation is so rare that the band likes to recount this story of their first gig at NYC’s Birdland Jazz Club. As the band began to load in, club owner Gianni Valenti became incredulous, even irate: “What the hell is this instrumentation? Where is the bass player?” Yet, shortly into the first set, Farinacci recalls, “he totally started to dig it, and he became very supportive of the concept.” In NYC’s jazz community word-of-mouth spreads like wildfire. The trio subsequently had six sold-out shows. That’s due to the far-ranging exploratory nature of this trio taking on tunes by Astor Piazzolla, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Kurt Weill and John Mayer as well as their tried-and-true classical strains.

Since this is new in just about every way, we’ll give ourselves the liberty of more biographical information than usual. As a Juilliard graduate, Farinacci ranks among the most acclaimed trumpeter-composers of his generation, whose endeavors include a Jazz at Lincoln Center ambassador, a TED speaker, creator of the nationally lauded production Modern Warrior LIVE, and more. Ward-Bergeman is a classical go-to accordionist for major North American symphony orchestras and a collaborator to Yo-Yo Ma. He has also recorded music for films by Francis Ford Coppola and worked with elders of the New Orleans jazz and brass-band traditions. Tamburr has made a career as a performer and composer-arranger in addition to his nonstop duties as a musical and creative director, for organizations and artists including Penn & Teller, Spiegelworld, Cirque du Soleil and vocalists Julio Iglesias, Clint Holmes, Wendy Moten and Shana Tucker. Also, key to this unique sound is engineer Michael Seifert, who mixed the recording, a veteran of sessions by Paul Simon, Regina Spektor, Tori Amos, Snarky Puppy and so many more. If you didn’t think chamber music could be produced by just three musicians, this trio will have you rethinking that. But that’s just one aspect of their sound.

They commence with a mournful arrangement of Piazzolla’s classic “Libertango,” displaying the undulating, echoing beauty of Farinacci’s trumpet, Ward-Bergeman’s accordion, and Tamburr’s mesmerizing vibes. Ward-Bergeman’s “Federal” is a dedication to the people of Federal, Argentina, where the accordionist absorbed the tradition of chamamé, while working on Coppola’s 2009 film Tetro. We hear flexible rhythmic and contrapuntal interplay on Kurt Weill’s “Je ne t’aime pas” and Yamandu Costa’s “Domingando” while “Interlude” begins with Tamburr’s marimba followed by Farinacci’s robust, full bodied toned trumpet in a tune that soon latches on to slow, simmering groove inspired by Little Jimmy Scott’s rendition of “When Did You Leave Heaven?”

Having been lulled into a dreamlike state with the chamber sound, their version of Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” will grab you by the neck and won’t let go for a full four minutes with the powerhouse vocal of guest Shenel Johns, the first of her three dramatic, intense appearances. Veteran percussionist Jamey Haddad also appears on the vocal tracks and a couple of others. Their tantalizingly slow building nearly ten-minute version of “St. James Infirmary Blues” is by far the most inventive this writer has ever heard, emblematic of the trio’s theatrical background. The third vocal piece has Tamburr delivering a gorgeous arrangement of John Mayer and Pino Palladino’s “Stop This Train” with Johns in a more nuanced vocal as the trio conjures subtle locomotive rhythms and the trumpet fills the breaks beautifully.

Yet the two tracks interspersed between these vocals are equally as intriguing though in greatly contrasting timbres. Farinacci’s ballad “A Prayer for You,” written for his mother while she was battling cancer is a quiet, sublimely haunting tour-de-force with all three members playing in utmost delicate restraint. By contrast, the vibraphonist’s “La Lucha Dura” stirs with the vibrant interplay of a mixed-martial-arts fight, yet another impressive display of group interaction and brimming solos.

Calling this an auspicious debut minimizes this monumental achievement in diversity. We can’t wait to hear what Triad offers next.

 

• Jim Hynes

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