Mike Reznikoff Trio

Aketa no Mise February 21st, 2009

Mike Reznikoff – drums
Nao Takeuchi – tenor sax, clarineca (modified clarinet)
Hiroshi Yoshino - bass

Mike Reznikoff’s trio gets right into the music. There’s no fluffing around, finding their fingers, searching for the groove. From the first beat, it’s straight on jazz. At first, one might guess that’s because it’s a trio, but this trio feels bigger than just a trio. The three keep pushing jazz forms and playing with limits, filling the music so full it’s impossible to imagine how you could fit anyone else on stage. It feels like a big band trio, if that’s possible. And in fact, it is!

Kicking off with “I Close My Eyes,” the trio got right into a supple interaction. Each member really listened to the others, shifting and accommodating to them, but also pushing and suggesting possibilities. They followed with “You and the Night and the Music,” delivered with a quick, pushy beat, that all felt comfortable sinking into deeply. Standards those two might be, but each song of the evening offered a new twist on old expectations, startling at times but delightfully startling always. “Heart of my Heart,” for example, an old barbershop quartet number, featured Takeuchi on clarineca. Unhampered by having to harmonize with a piano or other instruments, Takeuchi drew strength from the spirit of both Sidney Bechet and 60s free jazz. Un-tethered and yet grounded, tradition-conscious and still edgy, the trio created a wonderful mix.

Sonny Rollins’ “Paul’s Pal” was rendered in an amazingly odd meter. Reznikoff clearly likes challenges! Yet all three seemed more in sync the stranger the meter became. Their music contained other creative tensions, too: the more controlled they played, the looser the directions; the more they pushed each other ‘out,’ the more tightly they interacted; the more they turned to the past, as on “In Walked Bud,” the more contemporary the music sounded. Of course, there’s no need to figure all this out: it’s what makes their trio special.

Yoshino anchored the trio by keeping one ear on Takeuchi’s melodies and the other on Reznikoff’s rhythms. Like some musical weight lifter, he kept both sides balanced. Takeuchi’s playing with is always inventive and distinctive, but was especially so with this trio. Takeuchi really dug into the sounds of the sax, especially with his amazingly long circular breathing, (slightly concerned, I told him not to over-do it during the break, but he just laughed!). Takeuchi treated sounds in various ways, bending, breathing, stretching and twisting them, at times splaying the sounds over the background just to see what would happen.

Reznikoff’s drumming at first seemed unassuming, understated. Yet, as each song built on the last, it became clear he has nothing to prove, but yet proves a lot with that attitude. The balanced flow of free-like and bop-like rhythms was especially striking on the complicated question and answer structure of his original “Are We One?” Complicated for all the right reasons, that number, like his other originals, established large interior spaces that quickly filled up with more playing and interplaying from all three. Whenever one rhythm got just a little too established, Reznikoff layered on a new one, and the three started pumping that new one to the edges. Some trios just really sound like themselves, and when that happens, you know they have found that rare balance--of music, self and their selves in the music.