Myriad 3, Moons

Canada's Myriad3 is a jazz piano trio whose music has a marked composed-arranged emphasis and an acoustic jazz-rock sensibility similar to the Bad Plus, yet making original and engagingly modern contributions of their own, as we can hear readily on their third album Moons (Alma ACD52062).

The album gives us some eleven band originals. It is a product of five years working together, carefully honing their group sound and breaking ground in a sort of intuitive, mutually invigorating way.

Pianist Chris Donnelly, bassist Dan Fortin and drummer Ernesto Cervini show us how far they have come with an intriguing set of pieces, written variously by all three artists and providing substantial and contrastive landmarks, indexes of a compelling sort, guiding beams into their overall sound.

This is music played with an attractive flexibility and looseness that make each selection sing out and groove along while the effective and sometimes complex composed passages bring a great deal of musical innovation-novelty and musical worth.

The title cut is ravishing!! Do not miss this.

I found myself liking the music more and more as I heard it. This trio is the real deal, make no mistake. An abundance of musical wealth awaits!