By Paul Acquaro
Elia Aregger trio - Live (Unit Records, 2025)
Elia Aregger is a Swiss guitarist whose album Live came out in the
opening hours of 2025. Like some other European guitartists, like Kali kalima
and Jakob Bro, Aregger seems to have ingested and integrated a
particularly American guitar vernacular created by, among many other, Bill
Frisell, John Abercrombie, and even Pat Metheny, and transformed it into
something expressive and new. When I first heard Aregger, I thought maybe I
stumbled on a forgotten Power Tools-era Frisell album. By no means, however, is the recording bound to the past, rather it feels both reassuringly familiar and yet infused with discovery at its heart.
Live opens in a suspenseful mood and then opens wide with a hopeful flowing melody line. The keyword is flowing. The rhythm
sways gently between Marius Sommer's light touch on the bass and the forward leaning pulse of Alessandro Alarcon's drums. The flow increases and the rhythm tightens as the
guitar transforms, now distorted and dangerous, the whole mood shifts.
The next song, 'B or D' begins more aggressively than the opener: a gently distorted guitar plays a dripping melodic line decorated with chordal fragments, and the bass and drums are still light but insistent, helping give the
spartan guitar parts motion and fullness. Like the previous track, this one
also builds to a rocking section, but which only lasts long enough
to make an impression, then the tension is pulled back. The follow up track is a
ballad entitled 'Martha,' which as one may imagine, again flows, but now
gently, laced with traces of dissonance and hopeful intervals.
This is much more to be heard, but the basic components are already in place:
patient, spacious melodic lines, precisely layered tensions, dabs of colorful
distortion and sympathetic interplay between the three players.
Trio of Bloom - s/t (Pyroclastic, 2025)
So, this one is not really a "guitar trio" in the sense that the guitar is the leader, rather it's a full on collaboration, which critic Nate Chinen has called a "new-groove supergroup" -- which is both kind of fun and kind of true. This first time meeting of guitarist Nels Cline, keyboardist Craig Taborn and drummer Marcus Gilmore certainly has groove at its heart.
The album kicks off with a cover of Ronald Shannon-Jackson’s
‘Nightwhistlers’ that shimmers and shutters with an antsy pulse and electronic
twists, and is bookended by a cover of Terje Rypdal’s ‘Bend It,’ which offers
a much different kind of straight‑ahead driving beat, along with allusions to
Rypdal’s signature soaring lines. The tracks in between all seem to flower in their own way. Especially the
second track, Taborn's 'Unreal Light,' which unfolds slowly, first in
stretching, legato glistening tones, then transmogrifying into a lithe
rhythmic piece with Cline improvising a melodic dance. Then, there is the
10-minute freely improvised ‘Bloomers,' in which where Cline and Taborn’s edgy
sonic textures intertwine with Gilmore’s fluid, morphing pulses, propelling
the music into a exploration of dark electrified grooves.
Trio of Bloom, with a name that recalls the short-lived collaboration between
John McLaughlin, Jaco Pastorius and Tony Williams, but with an actual
connection to the power-trio Power Tools via their shared producer David
Breskin, is a true aural treat. Take your time with it, let it take root and
blossom.
Marcelo dos Reis' Flora - Our Time (JACC, 2025)
Portuguese guitarist Marcelo dos Reis' Flora is a bona fide guitar led trio.
Sure, it is a collaboration of excellent musicians, but the concept
and compositions are from the guitarist's creative musings. I first
encountered the group on their debut recording from 2023, which you can check
out here and thoroughly enjoy this follow-up release. I feel it would be a slight
conflict of interest for me to properly review the album as I contributed the liner-notes, which you can find on Bandcamp. I will, however, quote
myself to save you a click:
So, here we have the trio's sophomore recording, Our Time, and it more than picks up where the last one ended. There is more cohesion to the compositions, but they are also more complex and with a bit more nuance and contrast. It likely reflects the confidence they have gained after the fifty some-odd gigs that they've played since the first release, as well as something new in dos Reis' compositions. "I think this one is more open and adventurous in some way," explains the guitarist. "The repertoire from the first record grew up so much live after the recording, and when I started composing for this second one, I decided to open the music up more than on the first record."
Let us investigate, starting with the perfectly appointed opening track "Irreversible Light." The track loses no time announcing its intentions on seering its energy into your ears. Each step of the song, from the double stop theme over the urgent bass and drums to the sudden melodic twist introducing the solos, it is an exciting piece of hard rocking jazz that fits perfectly together.
Do yourself a favor, click on the play button below and enjoy:
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