Master drummer Bill Stewart is a frequent Fasching guest in 2023. First with organist Larry Goldings and guitarist Peter Bernstein and then with his own trio with bassist Larry Grenadier and saxophonist Walter Smith III. From boiling organ jazz to chordless trio.
Stewart and Grenadier know each other well after several years together with Pat Metheny and with John Scofield and in several other contexts. Walter Smith III is a more recent acquaintance but a perfect third piece of the puzzle in this masterful trio that has hosted the Village Vanguard in New York for two week-long occasions in recent years. Intuition, presence and well-balanced elegance shimmer over this edition of the Bill Stewart Trio, with a free stroll that brings to mind the trio playing of Sonny Rollins.
Those who want to prepare for this nuanced meeting do so with advantage by listening to the trio’s 2018 album Band Menu. A record that caused DownBeat magazine to burst into cosmic praise:
“Freed of a chordal center, the trio devours the bandleader’s cerebral, yet soulful, compositions like galactic navigators, trading jabs through the cosmos.”
