The WHO Trio's "Zoo"

Better late than never, I guess.

My review copy of this 2014 release double CD arrived at a moment when I wasn't doing much writing, and had little time for critical listening. It didn't help that I was perplexed by the title, which put me in mind of a bootleg double LP I once owned by another group of geezers who've been using the name with some success for several decades. But having listened, I feel I owe Gerry Hemingway an apology, and wish I'd caught his performance when he was in Dallas at Top Ten Records with Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser recently.

What we have here is a solid set of improvisational dialogues, documenting a dynamic that these musos developed over two decades and five releases (including this one; they've since followed up with an album of Strayhorn and Ellington compositions), employing a lot of extended techniques on their "classic" jazz instrumentation, and providing a fair amount of light and shade.

These men are capable of performing with the utmost restraint  -- as in the minimal wisp of melody pianist Michel Wintsch introduces about six minutes into the 13-minute-plus "Raccita," before bassist Banz Oester's percussive arco (oxymoron?) leads the trio into a thumping (although, notably, still restrained) rock groove. They also excel at building and releasing tension (as on the 12-minute "Sloepper"). The busy and prolific percussionist Hemingway -- perhaps best known for his work with the trio BassDrumBone, the quartet of composer/multi-reedist Anthony Braxton, and the ensemble of pianist Anthony Davis -- always plays in a manner that reminds us he's a composer first (like Tyshawn Sorey, or the young Anthony Williams).

On the "electric" disc's three long pieces, Wintsch plays synth as well as acoustic piano (recalling Matthew Shipp on David S. Ware's Corridors and Parallels, as well as Braxton's early collaborations with Musica Electronica Viva alum Richard Teitelbaum). The electronic and acoustic textures are interwoven seamlessly and organically. Hemingway's wordless vocalizing on "Lamp Bowl" contributes to the track's dreamlike ambience. Modern music gets no finer.