The Flow Trio is a collective of three improv music heavyweights who got started in the ’70s (Charles Downs, drums), ’80s (Joe Morris, contrabass) and ’90s (Louie Belogenis, saxophones). When we did a little write-up on their second album Rejuvenation in 2009, we didn’t think it’d be twelve more years before we’re back examining a new (studio) release by this stimulating ensemble.
They made only one album in the interim, Set Theory, Live at the Stone, and that was 2011. However, the Trio decided to reconvene in the studio in January 2020 and when they did, they brought a friend along: free jazz tenor sax giant Joe McPhee, whose recording debut was on Clifford Thornton’s aptly titled Freedom and Unity album from 1967.
Winter Garden is what came out of those sessions, and it’s clear we have seven, no-holds-barred jams constituted on the spot by this trio + one.
There’s never been a 21st century ESP-Disc that’s sounded so much like a mid-60s ESP-Disk record. It’s as if McPhee, Belogenis, Morris and Downs walked into the studio to record this record as Ayler, Peacock, and Sunny Murray were walking out after finishing their Spiritual Unity session and the vibe just hung around.
“Rabble-Rouser” is “Tenor Madness” the ESP-Disk Way. After fruitful McPhee/Belogenis collisions, Morris makes his own exhortations on bass that directly extends from the saxes, so when those horns return, they just pick up right where they left off. Morris later goes and does that again, only this time wielding the bow.
The conversation between McPhee and Belogenis is quite different on “Recombinant,” and not just because the latter is on soprano sax this time. There’s a greater attention to melody and harmony instead of pure passion and Morris soon takes McPhee’s repeating pattern and adopts it as his bass line. Before long though, melody, harmony and rhythm break down.
Wandering bass figures set the starting point for “Harbinger” where Belogenis and McPhee improvise in tandem, exposing widely divergent styles that work so well when they improvise simultaneously.
Morris’ undertow has a way of pulling the entire band in a certain direction, such as his arco bass dictating the flow (no pun meant) for “Incandescence.” Downs is also more than doing his part setting the pulse and his finely distinctive drumming creating fluid rhythm patterns establishes the parameters for “Glistening.”
McPhee and Belogenis again joust on tenors during “Accretion,” as Morris supplies the low rumble and Downs brings the performance to the close on his own. The titular “Winter Garden” is launched by the restless bowing by Morris, and the rest of the band layers in their own responses to it.
With an ‘old-school’ free jazzer in Joe McPhee joining the Flow Trio, Winter Garden sounds even more like ‘The New Thing’ than it normally does. But this music that was cutting edge in the ’60s remains cutting edge today in the hands of master practitioners McPhee along with Downs, Morris and Belogenis.
Winter Garden is available now, via ESP-Disk.
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