3 dome Factor is Barry Altschul on drums, Joe Fonda on bass, and Jon Irabagon on tenor sax. I went to check out this group mostly out of curiosity. The main object of my curiosity was Jon Irabagon. I was not overly impressed by his recordings, nor am I a fan of MOPDTK. I had seen Irabagon shortly before, in Mary Halvorson's Quintet, and I thought he had acquitted himself well, albeit playing in the front line with trumpeter Jonthan Finlayson. Now I wanted to see how he would do in the naked environs of the trio format. I had already seen Altschul and Fonda before.
Alas, none of the three turned in a memorable performance. Irabagon can play, but the performance mostly lacked inspiration. At one point in his improvisation, he broke into a 60s Blue Note style ballad (like his Monk award album). He seemed more comfortable there. Irabagon might be on his way, but he is not there yet.
Joe Fonda was playful and energetic, but superficial.
The trio is a drum-driven group. Altschul made that abundantly clear. I know his semi-legendary status, and I have seen him before and liked him--in other people's groups. But his ownership of this group proved unhealthy. Altschul seemed to have a bad case of Buddy Rich-itis. Loud, flashy, rather bombastic playing (blowing a whistle repeated? WTF?) . He played at least several solos in what was a short set (shortest I have seen at Wind-Up). Oddly, the single set ended on a drum solo. I have not seen that before. There was no indication that the group wanted to provide an encore, and the crowd did not seem overly desirous of one.
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