There’s a new jazz supergroup made up of old vets with nothing to prove and yet with this collaboration, they are still proving it.
Creative Inspirations (PI Recordings) is the debut album from Trio Imagination, a new, three-man group made up of no less than David Virelles (piano), Reggie Workman (bass) and Andrew Cyrille (drums, percussion).
This “new” three-man group has its precedent, however. Trio 3 was a long-running project Cyrille and Workman ran along with saxophonist Oliver Lake. Lake retired from performing and the rhythm section regrouped with Virelles, one of Trio 3’s guest musicians, so the rapport was already there.
Workman and Cyrille, as you mostly likely know, are living giants, guys who’ve played significant roles in developing modern jazz, present on evolutionary recordings by John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor en route to making their own marks elsewhere. Virelles is the young guy of the bunch, though he’s been on the scene for nearly twenty years, offering new fresh ways of incorporating the music of his native Cuba into jazz.
Trio Imagination doesn’t sound like other jazz/bass/drums trios; they take a ground-up approach to designing their sound molded around the individual personalities involved and it’s quite apparent they are listening to each other as closely as they listen to their inner selves. Logically so, since each one has made a name creating their own language on their instruments and in the process, helped to shape the character of other giants with whom they collaborated.
“Unseen Mother” is a rubato where Cyrille’s exotic percussive colors give way to Virelles’ meditative piano and later, Workman’s wistful lines. For “Unseen Mother II,” the patter of Cyrille’s mallets add another mysterious dimension to the song.
Cyrille’s Haitian background and his signature melding of Caribbean rhythms into jazz is the driving force behind “Petalo.” Virelles applies a soft touch to let the drummer and Workman dictate the shape of the song, later taking firmer control with a mastery of space and modulation.
Workman gets to flex on bowed bass and demonstrates equal command plucking it during “Universal Sketches.” Virelles thoughtfully disseminates Andrew Hill’s modern melody “Refuge,” while the rhythm section plays with a looseness that sets up an authoritative drum clinic from Cyrille.
Time keeping is dispensed in favor of the dispersed rubato “Space Dance,” where Virelles’ carefully-placed chords contrasts against an unearthly backdrop. Cyrille’s Afro-Caribbean rhythms is part of the stuff that made him legend but it’s how Virelles and Workman dances around it that makes “Neves” so appealing. “Para Ti” feels like a stream-of-consciousness jam where Virelles makes variations on a theme with economy and a rhythmic concord to Cyrille’s spare, island-inspired percussion.
Trio Imagination is just that, a collective that powerfully combines the limitless imaginations of Andrew Cyrille, Reggie Workman and David Virelles. The music is deeply rooted in the seismic shifts that took place in jazz during the 60s but just like then, it’s aggressively forward-looking.
Creative Inspirations is available now and can be obtained through Bandcamp.
- Trio Imagination (David Virelles, Reggie Workman, Andrew Cyrille) – ‘Creative Inspirations’ (2026) - October 26, 2026
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