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Double Bass Bass / Sax / Drums Trio

#2
best bass/sax/drums trio ever (IMO) was Seattle's Sad Happy, featuring Skerik on sax. Google them for recordings. Current line up of the band features Michael Manring on bass.

other sax/bass/drums trios that i can think of:

Dos(e) (skerik on sax, joe doria on hammond, john wicks on drums)
Das Vibe 'n Bass (ok, it's sax/bass/vibes/drums)
Megatron (ok, it's sax/hammond/drums)


ok so i'm lacking on real trios.. but definitely check out those bands for some amazing jams that you can strong arm your sax-playing friend into forming a band with you.

point him to any of Skerik's projects, and they'll be strokin' that horn of theirs, eager to play!
 
#3
Dave Holland -- Triplicate (great stuff)
The Fringe -- Any album (George Garzone's free jazz trio)
Joe Henderson -- State of the Tenor (Live at VV -- Just like Sonny)
Dave Liebman -- Trio + 1 (Some tracks have an oboe)

Theres obviously more . . . but those are some of my favs.
 
#4
As far as Sonny goes, here's some recommendations (in no particular order)
A Night at the Village Vanguard - Blue Note - Elvin Jones and Wilbur Ware, also Donald Bailey and Pete LaRoca
The Freedom Suite - Riverside - Max Roach and Oscar Pettiford
Way Out West - Contemporary - Ray Brown and Shelly Manne
East Broadway Rundown - Impulse - Elvin and Jimmy Garrison
In Sweden or In Stockholm 1959 - Dragon - Pete LaRoca and Henry Grimes (this may be out of print)

These are good to start with. There are lots of others, including a bunch of bootlegs from the late '50's and mid '60's (Obviously those can be hard to find). Also check youtube, I know there's some good video there of him playing trio, and otherwise.
 
#5
Lee Konitz - Motion (with Elvin Jones and Sonny Dallas)
Elvin Jones - Puttin' It Together (with Jimmy Garrison and Joe Farrell)
Branford Marsalis - The Dark Keys (with Reginald Veal and Jeff Tain Watts)
Albert Ayler - Spiritual Unity (with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray)
Ornette Coleman - At the "Golden Circle" (with David Izenzon and Charles Moffett)

Off the top of my head, those are my favorites. I love this setting.
 
#10
A couple more:

Branford Marsalis, Bloomington (my favorite Bran FWIW) with Tain Watts and Robert Hurst

Bennie Maupin, Penumbra with Darek Oles and Michael Stephans

And if you'll stretch to a two-horn bass-drums quartet, try Charles Mingus' truly iconic
Presents Charles Mingus. "Name me a handful that's ridiculous, Danny!"
 
#11
Sam Sherry said:
And if you'll stretch to a two-horn bass-drums quartet, try Charles Mingus' truly iconic
Presents Charles Mingus. "Name me a handful that's ridiculous, Danny!"
Click to expand...



Excellent point Sam, that record is an absolute classic (Can you imagine what Mingus would have done with that tune over the last 7 years? How about The Fables of Cheney?). And once you allow for additional horns the field opens considerably, not only for Mingus (Live at Antibes, with Dolphy, Ted Curson, Booker Ervin, and Danny Richmond covers a lot of the same ground as Presents), but also Ornette's Atlantic recordings, Sonny Rollins' unbelievable Our Man In Jazz, with Don Cherry, Cranshaw and Billy Higgins, and a ton of Max Roach records, including The Max Roach 4 plays Charlie Parker, with Hank Mobley, K.D. and George Morrow, most of the George Coleman/Booker Little/Ray Draper/Art Davis records, and a great live one called "'Long As You're Living", with the Turrentine brothers, Julian Priester, and Bob Boswell. Not only is the playing great, but Max's writing/arranging is tremendous. And speaking of Sonny, how about THIS!
 
#12
There's a whole RAFT of JoHen trio recordings - nice live one with Charlie Haden and Al Foster, there's the Joe Lovano/Dave Holland/Ed Blackwell recording, check out also the two Jimmy Halperin trio discs - one with a pretty straight ahead rhythm section (Don Messina and Jim Chattin) and one kinda out (Dominick Duval and JD Parran). There's a great Rich Perry trio record with Jay Anderson and Billy Hart (I think) and if you stretch it to two horns there's Billy Drummond's DUBAI (Chris Potter, Walt Weiskopf and Peter Washington, a personal favorite).

There's a nice duo record of Warne Marsh and Red Mitchell that's been re-released by Fresh Sounds, New Music.
 
#13
off the top of my head:

Jimmy Lyons/Sunny Murray Trio w/ John Lindberg
C/D/E: Andrew Cyrille/Mark Dresser/Marty Ehrlich
Paraphrase: Tim Berne/Drew Gress/Tom Rainey
Renku: Michael Attias/John Hebert/Satoshi Takieshi
Wally Shoup Trio: Wally Shoup/Bob Rees/Reuben Radding (sorry)
Albert Ayler/Gary Peacock/Sunny Murray
Steve Lacy/Jean-Jaques Avenel/John Betsch
 
#14
I love Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus. The same band is on Live at Antibes; awesome!

Howabout:

William Parker- Painter's Spring, O'Neil's Porch, and Sound Unity.

Another awesome pianoless trio performance-- "Chasin' the Train" from Live at the Village Vanguard, Coltrane, Elvin, and Jimmy Garrison

Henry Grimes, David Murray, Hamid Drake-- Live at the Kerava Jazz Festival
 
#16
Joshua Redman's latest disc Back East with bass and drum teams of Larry Grenadier & Ali Jackson, Reuben Rogers & Eric Harland, Christian McBride & Brian Blade. Most of it is actually quartets with Chris Cheek, Joe Lovano and Dewey Redman also on saxophones. I saw him this summer touring this recording as a trio though and the couple of cuts I've heard of Back East have the same sparseness the trio did live.
 
#17
My steady jazz trio has been a bass/sax/drums trio for the past 2 years. The only reason I can see for not being able to "sell" this setup is individual preferences/prejudices for instrumentation. We have encountered great success thus far. If you want to check out our stuff for ideas, here are the links...

Link Removed

Link Removed

Any feedback is appreciated, of course!

P.S. My fave trio recordings with this instrumentation include both volumes of Ornette Coleman Live At The Golden Circle (on Blue Note), as well as Scott Colley's "The Magic Line".
 

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