Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center (Wallingford), 4649 Sunnyside Ave N, Seattle

Tickets available at www.brownpapertickets.com and 1-800-838-3006. Tickets are $14, general; $12, Earshot members and seniors; $5 for students w/current ID.

By Greg Pincus

Kris Davis, Tyshawn Sorey, and Ingrid Laubrock perform as a trio at the Chapel Performance Space on July 2. Their creative collaboration in the unique venue offers a special Saturday night on Seattle’s jazz schedule. The Davis, Sorey, Laubrock trio is no stranger to the local jazz scene. They were featured two nights at Tula’s on the Earshot Jazz Festival in 2009.

The trio is a truly collective effort. How and where it came about is a perfect reflection of the real world of working jazz musicians.

About two and a half years ago, shortly after Laubrock moved to New York, all three musicians got together for a session. Davis and Sorey had met earlier, playing together in another group. They were exploring a different context of collaboration, and Davis invited Laubrock to join them.

“It was an informal session,” Davis says in recent interview, “the kind of thing musicians do in New York possibly a couple of times a week as a way to meet people, have new music read, etc.” After improvising for almost two hours, it was clear the trio was something special and the music had to be explored further. Kris says there was “that instant connection and understanding, and we were excited to see where it could go.”
The trio met a few more times and began working with new music, each musician bringing original compositions. The music was written earlier for different groups, but the trio found new ways to make it their own. They soon began regular performances, interpreting the written material afresh each time.
In Davis’s words: “The way we play together … it feels like you can do no wrong – whether you are improvising or playing written music – it is wonderful.”

Davis is a native of Vancouver, BC, and has appeared as a pianist, composer, band leader, and collaborator, with her own quartet and other groups, three times in the past six years in Seattle. A student of classical piano, Davis was introduced to jazz during her middle-school years. While she has always had a passion for classical music (Alexander Scriabin and Arnold Schoenberg remain her classical influences), it was improvisation and the ability to communicate through the music that truly captivated her with jazz. Davis went on to study classical piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music and received her degree from the University of Toronto. After attending the Banff Centre for the Arts jazz program, she moved to New York to study and pursue jazz professionally. Since 2001, she’s emerged among vital contributors to New York’s jazz scene.

In jazz, the works of Wayne Shorter and Thelonious Monk are a source of inspiration to Davis. When it comes to writing her original music, Davis’s interest is focused primarily on the delicate balance between improvisation and composition, the push and pull within the music. She has played with several groups as a band leader and as a collaborator and has recorded with the Fresh Sound and Clean Feed labels. Davis also teaches at Queens College in New York.

Drummer Tyshawn Sorey, of Newark, NJ, has established himself among the most creative composers, educators, and multi-instrumentalists. A superb drummer, he is also an equally accomplished trombone player who has performed extensively in the United States and overseas. Despite his intense performing schedule, Sorey continues teaching composition and master classes at the School of Improvised Music.

Before moving to New York, German-born saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock studied jazz in London, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2004, the F-IRE Collective, including Laubrock, was awarded a BBC Jazz Award for Innovation; the following year, she was among the nominees for the BBC award as “Rising Star.” She’s featured, with guitarist Mary Halvorson, on Tom Rainey’s recent debut release on Clean Feed, PoolSchool.
The trio’s upcoming visit to the Northwest is a showcase of new original material. In July 2010, the Clean Feed label (based in Lisbon, Portugal) released the trio’s first album, Paradoxical Frog, consisting of eight original tracks. The group plans to begin recording a new album in September.

Tickets are $5 for students; $12, Earshot members and seniors; $14, general. Chapel Performance Space (Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N, Wallingford)