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The more I listen to music of all kinds, the more I become convinced that the jazz piano trio is one of the great ensemble innovations of the last century. Originally a piano/bass/guitar configuration popularized by Nat Cole, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal, by the mid-fifties the substitution of drums for guitar in such units as those led by Bud Powell, Erroll Garner, Billy Taylor, Marian McPartland, Hampton Hawes, Red Garland and others found Peterson and Jamal adjusting their already successful instrumentation. The template was now fixed; the historically dominant units of Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, not to mention numerous others, followed. What makes an ensemble of piano, bass and drums so satisfying is the harmonic space opened up for pianists in the absence of other chording instruments, the rhythmic and coloristic focus created by jazz’s multi-percussion “trap” kit, and a sonic balance that allows the bass a greater overall presence. Add talented musicians with complementary attitudes in both style and repertoire and great things happen. Those great things are harder to come by today than they were in the era when bands could rely on week-long club bookings and (at least for the most successful) extended concert tours to hone a unit. But the best contemporary trios find a way, and Tim Ray’s unit is one of the best. Ray, John Lockwood and Mark Walker were originally united on a Greg Abate gig in 2014. After the unit’s performance on Abate’s 2014 Whaling City album Motif, label owner Neal Weiss concluded that Ray’s trio deserved a date of its own, which became Windows. After Ray’s subsequent Excursions and Adventures, where he united with John Patitucci and Terri Lyne Carrington, it was time to return to his regulars. “I joked with John and Mark that they had to come up to the level of Terri Lyne and Patitucci,” Ray says with a smile in his voice, “but as much as I loved playing with such all-stars, I specifically chose to get back to what is my ‘working group’ – to the extent, of course, that they are available.” There lies the rub, at a time when three such multitalented artists are in demand from a wide variety of others. In pre-Covid days one could imagine that gears needed to be shifted when the trio united after a Ray road tour with Tony Bennett, a Walker stretch with Paquito D’Rivera, and one of Lockwood’s legendary hometown sets with The Fringe. When the pandemic arrived, scheduling was the least of the trio’s (and all of our) problems. “I would occasionally wander over to Lockwood’s house and do sessions,” Ray admits; “and after we were allowed to get back together, we started playing and working when we could locally, at least once a month.” Time has only elevated the band’s focus and compatibility. “We’ve played together for many years at this point,” Ray notes, “and I’ve played with John even longer. [Lockwood appears on one track from Ray’s first album, the 1997 release Ideas and Opinions.]. We’ve gotten more comfortable and confident that we can catch each other if something goes wrong. John and Mark are amazing accompanists with a great talent for adjusting to any situation they are in, and I expect them to make suggestions and throw some curve balls, to bring things to the music that I couldn’t necessarily articulate to other musicians.” Ray has spent much of his career conceiving arrangements for the many singers he has worked with, and notes that most of the performances in the present set are what he calls “scripted.” Yet, while he enjoys the arranging process, he likes to balance the program with what he describes as “just three guys playing jazz.” These three are so in synch that some of their tightest moments arose spontaneously on the bandstand, with “Stolen Moments” a case in point. Like the Oliver Nelson original and most subsequent versions, the final four measures of the melody are omitted when the solo choruses shift to a standard blues pattern. That’s how the solos work here, but that missing four bars appears as a bridge between Ray’s and Lockwood’s choruses. “That transition began spontaneously on a gig,” Ray notes. “I inserted it, John heard me and followed, and afterwards we decided to retain it for future performances.” As to the uncommon and uncommonly effective program, Ray argues that “I view myself primarily as a player. When one of my recordings is about to happen, I always think, `I should write more’; then I realize that I like Oliver Nelson tunes and Antonio Carlos Jobim tunes better than my own.” This hardly leads to predictable repertoire choices. Nelson’s “Stolen Moments” is the most frequently covered of the lot; Jobim here is represented by the less familiar “Mojave,” while rather than revisit classics Carla Bley wrote early in her career, Ray includes her more recent tribute to Larry Willis, “Lawns.” Ray has always found space on his discs for compositions by his heroes, and returns to the music of Monk (a hard-swinging “Bye-Ya”) and Jarrett (“The Windup”) while also extending the circle to worthy yet overlooked titles by Bley, Dave McKenna (the Ted Williams tribute “Theodore the Thumper”) and Oscar Peterson (a ruminative “Nighttime, suggested by fellow Peterson admirer Weiss). “Fire and Rain,” from the singer-songwriter universe that Ray knows so well, is among the freer tracks. “It was not intended to be anything specific,” he says of a performance that builds through a ruminative piano introduction through a Lockwood solo to an inexorable group climax. “I wanted it to go wherever it went, and have told audiences that `You may wonder if we’re still playing a James Taylor song, but we’ll get back to it.’” While many of the titles are what the pianist calls the trio’s “pre-Covid stuff,” half is newer material, including the three originals and the tautly evolving collective “Improv #1 (for Chick).” Walker, who gets to stretch instrumentally on “Bye-Ya” and “The Windup,” displays his compositional range on the evocative waltz “Moon in the Sea.” “The Meeting,” with a hymn-like opening featuring arco bass and a soulful groove recalling music of Lockwood’s native South Africa, turns out to be a family portrait. “The alternative title is `The Jbug and the Kman,’ a reference to John’s two sons,” Ray explains, “depicting when the older Jbug met his newborn brother for the first time.” Ray’s “NO Worries” includes touches of electric keyboard and a decidedly second-line groove. “My Achilles heel is coming up with titles,” he explains, “but `NO’ connotes New Orleans, while the phrase has become something that just keeps coming up. Even, for too many people, when the subject is climate change, which I was also thinking about. In that context, `no worries’ takes on added irony when you apply it to one of our most exposed cities.” While the moods and themes shift throughout this album, the level of creativity never falters. Tim Ray, John Lockwood and Mark Walker continue to produce some of the most inspired trio music of what we might call the surround-Covid era. Thanks to them, and thanks to Whaling City Sound for getting the music out to the wider jazz world. - Bob Blumenthal