Steve Lacy / Andrea Centazzo / Kent Carter – Trio Live LP Ictus (Italy)

Originally issued in 1977, Trio Live was recorded in 1976, only a handful of days after Steve Lacy and Andrea Centazzo’s Clangs (ICTUSRE 001LP) was laid to tape, presumably capturing another moment on the same two-week tour that had rendered the recordings for its brilliant predecessor. This time, the pair — Lacy and Centazzo — is joined by the American bassist, Kent Carter, a sinfully under-appreciated artist who had worked extensively in Steve Lacy’s group, played on the two Jazz Composer’s Orchestra LPs, and toured in the bands of Don Cherry, Alan Silva, Mal Waldron, Bobby Bradford, Max Roach, Roswell Rudd, Derek Bailey, John Stevens, Trevor Watts, Steve McCall, and many others. The previous year, he had also delivered the stellar LP, Kent Carter Solo With Claude Bernard, as Ictus’s second LP, allowing Trio Live to be understood as a narrowing of an already tight circle, despite its slightly expanded ensemble. Arguably best defining the first two entries in the Ictus reissue series — Clangs and Drops (ICTUSRE 002LP) — is a sense of rigorous and artistry. While no less present across the length Trio Live, what takes the forward charge throughout its five tracks is a sense of joy and pure pleasure in playing together. The sounds and structural interventions are locked in and tight, feeling at ease and intuitively responsive in the ways that players with a history of collaboration are only able to produce. From swinging and chugging to stepped back and sparse combinations of rhythm and tone — moving from the lingering sensibilities of straight-ahead jazz to radically out hard blow fire — Trio Live is a cornucopia of brilliant artistry and improvised music. Edition of 250.