Triplicity

Players: Ricardo Pinheiro, PT, guitar; Massimo Cavalli, IT, double bass; Eric Ineke, NL, drums;
Recorded: 2017 November 25, Lisbon, Portugal
Label/record company: Daybreak DBCHR75337 www.challengerecords.com

Liner notes: Victor L. Schermer www.allaboutjazz.com

Tittles: Blues Just Because; Cinema Paradiso; If I should lose you; Along came Betty; You’ve changed; Conception; Retrato em Branco e Preto; When you wish upon a star;

Tripilicity is the next result of a musical relationship that spans over five years in which various other projects of the Pinheiro-Ineke-Cavalli Trio took place.

The recording quality is excellent. It feels like you as a listener sits in the middle of the recording studio, having these three great players around you. Every note is crystal clear. This trio is clearly more than the sum of just three players. They breath the music together, as if you are listening to one instrument.

Guitarist Ricardo Pinheiro from Portugal is an impeccable player. He has a charming warm tone, with a subtle attack, just enough sustain, a wide range of dynamics and knows how to supports his beautiful executed melodies with countermelodies, well placed chords, and intelligent fills. His improvisations are telling little stories, convincing, to the point.

Drummer Eric Ineke from The Netherlands brings the right energy to the trio, the colors needed, locks in with the bass as an extension of his own instrument and sparkles when needed. The combination of decades of experience and freshness of playing in the moment is a rare to find in Europe, in the world. There is a certain joy and wit in his paying that is extremely personal.

Bassist Massimo Cavalli, originally from Italy but living, working and teaching in Portugal for decades, takes care of the bottom of the trio. His pulse is light, to the point, and all notes are well placed. He is a master in connecting chords in a tasteful way, no matter the style of the composition. His warm tone has the right ‘wood’ quality and the appropriate projection.

The repertoire on the CD is an eclectic mix of original compositions, jazz standards, and is spiced with an Ennio Morricone and a Carlos Jobim song. What makes this record such and outstanding example of jazz in Europe today is, the combination of the excellent players with their various backgrounds and experiences.

Each player teaches at a different major jazz pedagogical institutions which, no doubt, keeps their mind and ears open and fresh. The trio is able to set the tradition of jazz to their hands. The freedom of intelligent and tasteful moving through various ways of styles of improvisation, using standards and originals as a basic, is extraordinary, to put it mildly. This record is a little treasure.

Wouter Turkenburg
History of Jazz in Europe