Nick Southgate

The Document Chicago series was started by 482 Music to capture the new music emerging from the ever greater entanglement of Chicago's well-established free jazz scene and non-jazz players. The Exciting Trio comprises drummer Dave Pavkovic (of the Tatsu Aoki Trio), bassist Griffin Rodriguez (Bablicon, HiM) and guitarist Matt Schneider. There's great articulacy and sympathy between the players on the engaging shuffle of a track like "At a Place", or the cool introspection of "Scannurz", where Schneider uses various rock guitar tricks with volume and tone to extend his otherwise traditional jazz playing. Electronics and melodica are employed on "Gramps on the Corner", the track on which The Exciting Trio go closest to riding the currents of post-rock that have run through Chicago's music scene so freely in the last decade. Given the players' other interests, much of In Chicago There Is Willy is surprisingly restrained jazz playing, although when the ensemble do experiment, the results are never less than intriguing.

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