>the mi3: Karayorgis/McBride/Newton

Over the decades, Boston’s mi3 trio—Pandelis Karayorgis, Nate McBride, and Curt Newton—has developed a special approach to the piano trio tradition, using the Fender Rhodes with pedals and anchoring their free improvisations in repertoire by Monk, Ellington, Sun Ra, Hasaan Ibn Ali, and others.

Their first CD, We Will Make a Home for You (Clean Feed, 2005) captures the group’s origins as the house jazz trio at Boston’s Abbey Lounge, with Karayorgis’s Fender Rhodes giving the music a gritty, amplified energy. In Free Advice (Clean Feed, 2007) Karayorgis moves to acoustic piano without sacrificing that intensity, revealing the trio’s unusually close, fluid interplay and its ability to simultaneously swing, destabilize, and reshape the material. Betwixt (hatOLOGY, 2008) brings back the electric piano, using effects and distortion not as
retro decoration but as a means of expanding the trio’s sonic vocabulary.

Across all three albums, critics have singled out the group’s collective responsiveness and their adventurous treatment of the material. They have praised the way McBride and Newton function as equal partners rather than conventional rhythm-section accompaniment, and calling the music “angular, explosive, playful, and deeply rooted in the jazz tradition while remaining thoroughly its own.”

Betwixt (hatOLOGY) - Free Advice (Clean Feed) - We Will Make A Home For You (Clean Feed)

"Free Advice is a timeless trio masterpiece destined to surprise listeners for years to come."
Troy Collins, All About Jazz

"This is a gem. The colors of the Rhodes, the level of musicianship, and good old inspiration make for the most musical of collisions. It hasn’t left my player for weeks. "
Dan Rose, OneFinalNote

"If you asked me to make a long enough wish-list for musical projects, I'm sure I'd wind up asking for a trio with an elite post-jazz keyboardist smearing a Fender Rhodes electric piano over a snap-crackle-pop free jazz rhythm section. You can imagine how great it felt to have any such wish pre-empted by a disc that jumps right into the stratosphere with a leadoff take on Dolphy's "Gazzelloni" that fits the proposable scheme as tight as I could hope for. This disc just destroys me... "
Michael Anton Parker, Downtown Music Gallery (NYC)

"The set consists mostly of Monk tunes, with three Karayorgis originals (including "Disambiguation," one of my faves), one by Hasaan Ibn Ali, and a crushingly good version of [Eric Dolphy's] "Gazzelloni." After a few listens -- especially to their quirky, ruminative "Ugly Beauty" and shifty, mischevious "Monk's Point" -- it's apparent that, as with the best Monk interpreters, there's no slavish appropriation of key monastic gestures....It's a killer recording."
Jason Bivins, Signal to Noise

"Betwixt reveals (Karayorgis) as a sonic architect of the highest order, a visionary improviser whose enthusiasm for the possibilities of sound knows no limit. Together, Karayorgis, McBride and Newton offer a thrilling set guaranteed to turn heads."
Troy Collins , All About Jazz

Boston Globe article ...

 

poster by Monte Antrim