By Ed Enright | Published October 2025
A triangulation of keyboardist Craig Taborn, guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Marcus Gilmore — musical omnivores with indelible voices that reject categorization — Trio of Bloom is a rocking and reflective embodiment of sonic creation and spontaneous hybridization, a spirited flurry of inventive interaction among three of jazz’s most singular artists. This bold new configuration, with a self-titled debut on the convention-bucking Pyroclastic label, was instigated by the famously cross-pollinating producer David Breskin, who asked each musician to bring in a selection of original compositions, both new and repurposed, as well as a cover for the group to have their way with. Trio Of Bloom starts off with an explosion of sorts, as the group transforms Ronald Shannon Jackson’s 1980 jazz-rock shuffle “Nightwhistlers” into a fusion-scorched thriller that roils with overtones of crime-scene danger. Taborn’s “Unreal Light” shimmers and drones with a reverent air before morphing into an angular groove that casts aside any semblance of overly serious pretense. Gilmore’s “Breath” floats in a timeless watercolor world of dreamy enchantment. Cline overdubs a gripping bass guitar line on his tune “Queen King” (which references the Afrobeat riff of “King Queen” from the Nels Cline Singers’ Breskin-produced 2010 album Initiate). On “Diana,” from the 1975 Wayne Shorter/Milton Nascimento collaboration Native Dancer, the trio uses recording studio amenities as creative fodder, with Taborn on celeste sounding as sentimental (and haunting) as an old-time music box, Cline conjuring atmospheric, hypnotic loops and Gilmore tuning his toms to thunder like orchestral timpani. The 10-minute free-improv “Bloomers” serves as a centerpiece of sorts, with the trio deeply focused in stream-of-consciousness interplay drawn from deep wells of genre-spanning knowledge and influence, ultimately discovering a gold mine of shared affinities and cultivating crossbred blossoms of exceptional beauty.
