Great jazz trios are not easy to come by, but there are the makings of one in the partnership of pianist Laurence Hobgood, bassist Brian Torff and drummer Paul Wertico.
Earlier this year, the three musicians released their first recording together, “Union” (on the Naim label), and the exquisitely refined interplay among them made this one of the most striking debut recordings of ’97.
For those who wondered whether the fledgling trio’s work would prove as seductive in concert as it was on disc, the musicians answered the question definitively over the weekend at the Green Mill Jazz Club.
Despite the rambunctiousness of the late-show crowd, the Hobgood-Torff-Wertico trio conveyed a degree of musical subtlety, technical control and tonal beauty one rarely encounters in any setting.
This is a trio in which each player listens assiduously to his partners’ every gesture and reacts accordingly. No brush stroke by Wertico or unusual voicing by Hobgood or counter-melody by Torff fails to ring out in the ensemble texture, even at the softest dynamic levels.
These three musicians, in other words, understand sound–how it resonates and then decays– better than most. Together, they create uniquely shimmering ensemble timbres, but without sacrificing the distinctive colors of each instrument.
Balance is the name of the game here, and Hobgood, Torff and Wertico achieve it routinely, perhaps because of the degree of trust these players share. Add to that the musical erudition and understated virtuosity of each performer, and you have a trio of considerable accomplishment and even greater potential.
From the opening notes of their second set on Friday night, there was little doubt that this trio can bring a room to a hush without playing much louder than a whisper. Hobgood’s meltingly lyric tone on the nearly forgotten Jimmy Dorsey tune “I’m Glad There Is You” easily seduced the ear, while his right-hand passages in the highest registers of the keyboard pushed into territory most keyboardists ignore.
Many listeners know Wertico from his work with Pat Metheny and as leader of several of his own bands, but the drummer–as chameleonic as any working today–took a somewhat different tack in this setting. The great bursts of brilliant color that long have been Wertico’s trademark didn’t turn up here; instead, the man played with consistent delicacy and restraint.
Torff, for all the alacrity of his technique, remains a pervasively melodic bassist. The warmth of his sound and the elegance of his phrasing were ideally suited to this trio, surely one of the more promising in jazz.
