By Frank Alkyer | Published February 2022
Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Hero Trio is a serious attempt at a jazz group that doesn’t take itself too seriously. From the group’s beginning with the 2020 launch of Rudresh Mahanthappa Hero Trio (Whirlwind), the alto saxophonist and his superhero companions Rudy Royston Jr. (drums) and François Moutin (bass) have been carving up songs faster than a speeding bullet and sending them back as launchpads of improvisation. Now the Hero Trio returns with an EP that clocks in at 22 minutes and 39 seconds of pure joy. For those old enough, remember waking up, playing an album side, then heading out for the day? It’s like that. Just four great tunes that will make you laugh, think and slap a smile on your face. For Mahanthappa, it seems that he selected three songs that reminded him of his youth, and one more that reminded him of his youths. For the front of that statement, the trio does a serious explosion on “Missouri Uncompromised,” a Pat Metheny tune from the guitarist’s 1976 debut Bright Size Life (ECM). The original was also from a trio with Metheny, bassist Jaco Pastorius and drummer Bob Moses. Here, Mahanthappa and his alto saxophone cut deep on a tune written to skewer the Missouri Compromise of 1820, a law that admitted Missouri as a slave state while banning slavery from Maine and the remaining land from the Louisiana Purchase. This is the deepest, and perhaps most satisfying, cut from the session. Mahanthappa’s alto pierces in a way that the warm tone of Metheny’s guitar could not. Moutin and Royston serve as perfect foils, handling the pressure of measuring up to the original with confidence and power. Beyond that, Mahanthappa seeks to bolster the status of flugelhornist Chuck Mangione with a version of “Give It All You’ve Got” as a really lovely ballad, reminding listeners of Mangione’s bona fides as composer and member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers before he became a pop-jazz star in the ’70s. The trio then speeds ahead to the late ’80s for a chuckle-inducing turn on George Michael’s mega-hit “Faith.” There has certainly never been this kind of ambitious, rambunctious blitz on the tune. The trio slashes into improvisation for the first 90 seconds before hitting the melody for a spell, then launching back into a terrific give-and-take preceding the outro. Mahanthappa notes in the press materials that the second pass through the melody is superimposed on the chord changes of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” Finally, there’s the title tune. It seems that the saxophonist has been spending a lot of extra time at home with his two young children during the pandemic. Animal Crossing is the name of a popular video game series for youngsters. The Hero Trio turns its theme song, miraculously, into a jazz playground. It’s a cool, grooving tune showing off the individual talents of all three musicians as well as their fierce interconnectedness. While “Missouri Uncompromised” is all about seriousness, don’t think for a minute that the EP’s other three tunes are tongue-in-cheek. The trio does serious work here while having a good time. It’s proof that anything can be turned into jazz, and if the artists are special, the results can be downright heroic.
