Trio Riot @ Schmazz at the Jazz Café. March 25

Sam Andreae (tenor saxophone), Mette Rasmussen (alto saxophone) & David Meier (drums)

(Review by Russell/Photo by Ken Drew)

Trio Riot made a return visit to Tyneside to play a Schmazz date at the Jazz Café. The increase in audience numbers – up on the band’s Newcastle debut at the Bridge Hotel – suggests word had got around that this was a trio worth hearing. The ‘punk jazz’ label seems to have stuck and it does, to a degree, give an indication of what the listener could/should expect to hear.

Loud, intense, incessant riffs with a disarming element up their collective sleeve…humour. Sharp blasts from the horn players – Sam Andreae (tenor), Mette Rasmussen (alto) – followed by a destablising silence broken by one or other, perhaps drummer David Meier (perhaps by the member of the trio most adept at counting the time in their head!), punctuated the performance.

Touring the CD Trio Riot (a simple enough title, it does what it says on the tin), the trio travel light – tenor horn and alto, Meier using a house kit along the way – yet punch above their weight on stage. Upper register work by Andreae or Rasmussen ratcheted the tension, released by cascading notes tumbling to the floor, Meier ducking out of the way, forging a change in direction. New compositions were heard, the band reading their parts, the tunes yet to be committed to memory. Trio Riot has created a readily identifiable sound – commanding, engaging, uncompromising.                

Russell.