Reviews

Zoo Too Trio, Poetry Legroom, Shifting Paradigm ***

marlbank4 May 20252 Mins read

Zoo Too Trio, l-r: Michael Cain, Pheeroan akLaff, Keith Price

Both a curiously monikered band name and album title. But this is far better than just being an interesting curio on these levels. Michael Cain, the 59 year old pianist here, is always worth listening to. Oh it’s such a long time since I have heard him live it’s painful to recall the creaking chasm of years. That was with Steve Coleman a few times. I used to be a huge MBASE fan and still like the style. It’s not MBASE here at all, more rhapsodic and pastoral in nature but not complacent at all in any way.

He’s great on Ravi Coltrane album Moving Pictures (1998) the saxist’s debut that had Tain at the kit and Coleman on a few tracks. Here on this Shifting Paradigm release I’d zone in on the rewarding ‘Solodos’ most if you are a Cain fan.

Free drummer percussionist extraordinaire Pheeroan akLaff, 70, the other main pillar of Poetry Legroom made a big impact on me one time at a gig in London in the late-1990s just as much as hearing Rashied Ali for the first time around the same period. Highlights of akLaff’s protean career achievements include playing on Wadada Leo Smith classic Ten Freedom Summers (2012).

The trio here is completed by more of ”a known” unknown – that’s not double speak by the way – guitarist called Keith Price. The fortysomething is a Canadian living in New Zealand who studied at Brandon University in Manitoba where he was taught by Cain. And come on down the Price is right as he provides a gentle, almost John Abercrombie-like, balm to these highly atmospheric and pleasurable tunes on this studio album which was recorded in Brooklyn.

Keith Price tune ‘O’Neil’s Bay’ named after a place near Auckland

There’s a homespun quality to some of the tunes and the opening tracks are spare and tentative – gentle jabbing at the keys by Cain start to unspool beyond an étude into more rhapsodic lines reaching an apogee on the rather lovely Ron Blake composition ‘Waltz for Gwen.’

Cain knows the tune well. He was on an album called Shayari (Mack Avenue, 2008) that this piece featuring the tender sax of Blake was on back in the day.

It’s not an avant-garde record at all. In fact to its credit you can’t categorise it crudely. But as a general observation there are lots of progressive harmonic ideas dotted about. AkLaff as often as not opens up the sound even when he restrains himself to minimal brushstrokes and open ended accents, feints and subtle fills.

‘Waxing Gibbous,’ has evocative spoken word poetry (from akLaff) conjuring stimulating Babylonian meditations delivered when the heat is on in something of an ever increasing roiling maelstrom of sound.

Poetry Legroom compositions are mainly originals by the band members.

So not at all cryptic or annoyingly abstruse – these curiosities coalesce into a sound that makes sense. A perfect sort of album to take time out with and find space to reflect over like it’s a guiding light.