FTW, 5.4.2024

This month is starting off strong with two weekends in a row of Trio Glossia, my favorite band of the moment. This Saturday, they played two strong sets to a small audience at Bee Yourself Art Gallery, a pop-up at The Pool Near Southside just south of Cook Children's neighborhood clinic on 8th Avenue. The exhibition features works by transgender and gender-diverse artists in support of Finn's Place, a community center for trans people in Fort Worth, and will run the next three Saturday evenings from 6:30-10pm.

Trio Glossia radiates joyful energy in everything they do, with a unique blend of personalities, multi-instrumental flexibility, and a determination to ground their flights of invention within well developed structures. Stefan Gonzalez grew up in a creative family and performed free jazz and thrash in units with this father and sibling (Yells At Eels, Akkolyte) before making international impact with Humanization 4tet and The Young Mothers. Joshua Miller steered the psychedelic rock outfit Same Brain toward free jazz before teaming with Stefan; to these ears, he was a major contributor to the vibe of the most recent edition of the Dennis Gonzalez Legacy Band. Matthew Frerck is a schooled musician with a strong creative bent, and a driver in Trio Glossia's compositional focus.

While Stefan's vibraphone and Joshua's post-Ayler tenor are the band's nominal "lead" instruments, Matthew's bass serves as another strong melodic element, as well as providing the music's harmonic and rhythmic underpinnings. Both he and Joshua will shift the music's rhythmic thrust on a dime; some of Matthew's arco harmonics (played simultaneously with open string pedal tones) give the impression that there's another wind instrument onstage. Observing from up close, it was interesting to compare the two drummers' approaches. Joshua tends to float more a la Roy Haynes; his deft brushwork is a strong suit. Stefan drives with the polyrhythmic power of an Elvin Jones or Ronald Shannon Jackson. Both are, in their own ways, stupendous.

Stefan is adamant about maintaining the music's connection with the blues and bebop, as well as free jazz and open improvisation, and wants the band to develop a deep catalog of original material. Next month, Trio Glossia will record in the studio with engineer extraordinare Aubrey Seaton at the controls. Next Saturday, May 11, they'll be at New Media Contemporary in Dallas's Exhibition Park on a bill with Houston jazz-rock-flamenco juggernaut El Mantis. Don't you dare miss it.