"Craig Taborn, Nels Cline and Marcus Gilmore - three of the most revered and inventive artists in modern creative music - meet for the first time as Trio of Bloom. The trio's self-titled debut defies description with far-ranging sound worlds and genre-defying exploration

The seed of an idea from which Trio of Bloom sprouted was simply three names, and the limitless potential they suggested: keyboardist Craig Taborn, guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Marcus Gilmore. Three wholly singular artists, but with intrepid spirits in common; musical omnivores, with indelible voices that reject categorization, sharing an indefatigable compulsion to venture into previously undiscovered sonic territory. On their debut release Taborn, Cline and Gilmore converge for their first-ever meeting - blossoming, like the flowers that grace the album's artwork, into a living thing of radiant beauty, startling vibrancy and sultry intensity.

The initial inspiration came from producer and poet David Breskin, a longtime collaborator with all three musicians, who imagined sparks would ignite when they met. "I'm always looking for ways to cross-pollinate and to bridge gaps," Breskin explains. "I like to introduce people that might admire each other from afar but have never rubbed up against each other. I didn't know what the combination would sound like, which is the most exciting aspect for me. Watch Video for "Queen King"

Conceptually, Trio of Bloom harkens back nearly four decades to Strange Meeting, the sole album by Power Tools, which united guitarist Bill Frisell with bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. That alchemical project, also instigated and produced by Breskin, has made a formative impact on generations of genre hybridizers, notably including both Cline and Taborn. The ensuing albums resemble each other in nothing but their kaleidoscopic vitality, but that common vitality is ferocious and captivating. "The category-less, open and rocking precedent of that music was a very freeing inspiration for me," Cline says.

It's somewhat remarkable that these three inveterate experimentalists have not met before in some form, though their respective circles are vast enough to confound any attempt at a Venn diagram. Cline had never played with either in any context; Taborn and Gilmore had shared the stage on a handful of occasions in bands led by Chris Potter and Jakob Bro but never, to use Taborn's words, "in a creative interaction with each other's music. So when Breskin floated this idea, it was a no-brainer for me."

"We all share the broadest range of possible influences," Taborn continues. "I wanted to lean into those rather than delimit a certain space. I was very aware of how everybody played, so the real question became what that signature would be overall. I tried to leave the possibilities open and to engage each piece on its own terms."

"My initial thought was a combination of excitement and fear," Cline describes. "These guys are such wizards. I didn't know what the modus operandi would be, but we found a lot of common ground and shared affinities."

"Nels is knowledgeable about such a broad spectrum of music," Gilmore adds. "Craig plays at such a high level and also has a really wide-spanning knowledge of music. It's exciting to be around people like that because you can learn a lot." Read WRTI Exclusive Feature

Breskin tasked each bandmate with bringing in a selection of original compositions, both new and repurposed, as well as a cover song that could be tailored for the trio. The album begins with Taborn's selection, Ronald Shannon Jackson's "Nightwhistlers" from Eye On You, the 1980 debut by the drummer's band Decoding Society. Jackson's jazz-rock reimagining of a Texas shuffle is transformed in Gilmore's hands into a bracing eruption that begins the album. Cline's cover choice is Terje Rypdal's "Bend It," from the Norwegian guitarist's 1973 ECM release What Comes After, woven with an air of mystery and stealth. Gilmore suggested "Diana," from the 1975 Wayne Shorter/Milton Nascimento collaboration Native Dancer. The trio's breathtaking rendition takes full advantage of the studio's capabilities, with Taborn playing crystalline celeste, Cline tailoring ephemeral loops and Gilmore tuning his toms like timpani for each chord change. "It's a really beautiful tune," Gilmore says, "but it'sdaunting. You can't try to make it better, because it's already perfect. So we just had to make it different." Adds Cline, "The original is so profound, but it became a new version in a really beautiful way. And that had to happen, or there wouldn't have been much reason for it to exist."

Taborn's "Unreal Light" is the embodiment of the trio's name, blooming from a glimmering drone into a playfully angular, elusive groove. His "Why Canada" catapults to the opposite end of the spectrum for a corrosive burst of abstract, barbed wire funk. Gilmore's "Breath" suspends time for five minutes of serene, spectral beauty.

Cline contributes four pieces to the album. "Queen King," with Cline overdubbing the infectious bass line, echoes the Afrobeat riff of "King Queen" from the Nels Cline Singers' Breskin-produced 2010 album Initiate. That album also yields "Forge," which the guitarist wanted to reprise and expand upon to provide the trio with an exercise in "that dark, King Crimson and Mahavishnu Orchestra vibe." Cline's "Eye Shadow Eye" is a new three-part composition that begins with a tender ballad spotlighting Taborn's delicate piano and Gilmore's crisp brushwork; that leads into a terse blues section for the composer's sinuous solo, culminating in an anthemic finale. "Gone Bust" is a brief sketch, a concluding shock of bristling energy to draw the curtain.

The album's centerpiece is "Bloomers," a ten-minute free improvisation that corrals the fringe-probing sound effects of Cline and Taborn with the slippery, shifting rhythms of Gilmore into a vitalizing delve into the outer limits of dub.

The lush imagery found in the Trio of Bloom booklet is by the artist Sharon Core, who painted new versions of pictures from legendary photographer Irving Penn's 1980 collection Flowers. Beautiful, yes; but like the remarkable album it adorns, so much more - rich with ideas of the natural and the synthetic, of creation and reinterpretation, of interaction and individuality. Look/listen deeply, and much will inevitably bloom."-Pyroclastic Records"

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