OKB Trio's The Ing...

Jazz trios don't usually sound this full and open. I think about my favorite trio albums such as Sonny Rollins' Way Out West and how these albums always do such a superior job of isolating what each member of the trio is doing and how each contributes to the whole. Even so, there are a lot of empty spaces in jazz trios, which is certainly not a bad thing. It just is.

The OKB Trio sounds a little too full and warm at first, as if these three musicians--pianist Oscar Perez (the O), bassist Kuriko Tsugawa (the K) and drummer Brian Woodruff (the B)--aren't really a trio after all. They sound a lot bigger at first, and that's mostly because there is this fluid warmth that defines the way they play together, interlocking ideas that fill in the gaps. There's a point, obviously, where your mind is able to organize each musician's space and conclude that this is an unfettered trio with no tricks up anyone's sleeves. It's tough for a contemporary jazz trio to distinguish themselves so clearly from similar ensembles, but OKB manages to do it quite easily.

OKB was born in 2010, when Woodruff played a run at Blackbird's in Queens and was able to book different musicians each week. One June evening Tsugawa and Perez jumped on stage. By the end of the night, all three had a drink together to celebrate their extraordinary synergy. Tsugawa declared, "I always want to play with this trio." Listening to this mix of original and standards, it's easy to understand why. Again, this trio sound sounds incredibly fluid in an entirely intuitive way, and that comes from pure unadulterated chemistry. Whether they're playing from the GAS (Ahlert and Young's "I'm Going to Sit Right and Write Myself a Letter") or taking turns with their own compositions (each submit two), they get it down like no one else.

The Ing... is special in another way. It is the very first performance recorded at Big Orange Sheep, a new studio that was built by many in the Queens jazz community including Woodruff, Perez and Tsugawa's husband. The warmth I describe is partially due to this space, which was built as a true labor of love. Woodruff produced the album, and Chris Benham, the owner of Big Orange Sheep, recorded and mixed and mastered the album. So there's something quite special about this inaugural offering, a combination of community love and support and getting everything right by doing it yourself. It shows in every note of this excellent album.