January/February 2002

Jim Ridl Trio
Live
Dreambox Media

By Bill Bennett

It doesn't sound as if there were too many in the audience when the Jim Ridl trio recorded Live (Dreambox DMJ-1055; 66:02). That's a shame, because those who came out two years ago heard a very hard-working trio deliver a satisfying performance. Ridl's style isn't easy to categorize: he can play vertical games, even as he sets up a well-articulated, fine line through some of the challenging harmonic courses he crafts for himself. "First Rose" is a thorny structure whose progression seems to wring whole-tone scalar figures out of the piano. Ridl reworks both "Caravan" and "Cherokee" into wide-open frameworks that give him, bassist Steve Varner and drummer Jim Miller plenty of stretching room. This is a trio that takes lots of chances, and delivers handsomely most of the time.