muzycy:
NICK MAZZARELLA: alto saxophone
ANTON HATWICH - bass
FRANK ROSALY - drums

Editor's info:
The Nick Mazzarella Trio was formed in 2008 and for several years remained one of the most active working bands in Chicago’s vibrant jazz scene, performing regularly at clubs and festivals across the city, and recording three albums before drummer Frank Rosaly moved to Amsterdam in 2016. When Rosaly returned for a visit in early 2018, Mazzarella composed a suite of six new pieces for a concert commemorating the trio’s tenth anniversary. That performance, given before a full house at Co-Prosperity Sphere in the south-side neighborhood of Bridgeport, was recorded live on reel to reel tape, and the complete, uncut recording is now available as the trio’s fourth album, Counterbalance.

On Counterbalance, the members of the trio bring to bear the collective creative experience they have accumulated over the past decade, displaying a new level of maturity in their interpretation of Mazzarella’s latest compositions—which draw as much from contemporary classical music as from the jazz tradition—and a new level of patience and communication in their highly personal improvisations. As critic John Corbett asserts in his liner notes for the album, the trio’s music is "magnificent, relaxed. It has nothing to prove. The sound is proof enough.”

COMMENTS ON COUNTERBALANCE
When I first heard Counterbalance, I was a bit stunned. It made me think of some of my favorite saxophone trio albums: Ornette Coleman's Live at the Golden Circle, Air's Air Song, Charles Gayle's Touchin' On Trane, Joseph Jarman's Black Paladins. Not that the Nick Mazzarella Trio is taking cues from these, but rather that they are creating an indelible statement, breathing new life into a common form. As John Corbett observes in his liner notes, the Nick Mazzarella Trio has nothing to prove. Counterbalance is their fourth album in ten years. It is a beautifully recorded statement of intent, a snapshot of a mom.......
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