CD Review: Tom Bancroft: Trio Red – Lucid Dreamers

Tom Bancroft (drums), Tom Cawley (piano) & Per Zanussi (bass)

(Review by Russell)

Lucid Dreamers is Trio Red’s follow up album to their 2012 debut recording First Hello to Last Goodbye. Drummer Tom Bancroft contributes two compositions (the opening and closing tracks), five tunes were written by the trio and three other numbers complete a ten track package.

Tom Bancroft and pianist Tom Cawley had previously worked together and their meeting bassist Per Zanussi for the first time in the recording studio created this enduring working relationship as Trio Red. 

Bancroft’s impish Saturday Afternoon (with Sophie) suggests an afternoon ‘hanging out with his then three year old’ was unalloyed joy. In contrast, Lucid Dreamers closes the album in serious mood. Written during turbulent times in Tblisi with an all too recent civil war at the forefront of Georgians’ minds, the composition is dark in content, evolving into a wonderful trio performance with Cawley’s piano at its heart.

Trio Red’s sense of humour runs through several of the tracks including Mr McFat Puts on his Socks and Monsieur Pompouse Takes a Stroll. A swing feel surfaces from time to time, not least on Mingus’ Jump Monk. Contemporary developments are referenced in the group composition Acoustica Electronica (Tom Cawley came to prominence in Acoustic Ladyland) on an album sure to reward fans of the piano trio and those interested in group improvisation.

Trio Red’s Lucid Dreamers is released on Interupto Music (IM005) on Friday 29 April on CD and as a download. A promotional tour takes Bancroft, Cawley and Zanussi to the Blue Lamp, Aberdeen (May 12), Glad Café, Glasgow (13), a Bancroft home town gig at  the Village Hall, Pathead (14), Soundhouse@Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh (16) and a gig at the Vortex, London (17).

Russell.