Rachel Z & Omar Hakim
The Trio Of Oz
Ozmosis Records
www.thetrioofoz.com
By George W. Harris

Pianist Rachel Z is one of those pianists who’s put out a steady flow of material, as well as served as a yeoman for Wayne Shorter, Steps Ahead and Peter Gabriel, without making much of a name for herself. A few years ago, she put out a nice disc, The Department of Good and Evil with an all female band, which was excellent. Here, she teams up with legendary drummer Omar Hakim (from Weather Report, Sting, Miles Davis, etc) and bassist Maeve Royce to put together an incredibly creative trio disc that makes the wise choice of selecting material from today’s generation. Oh, yeah, that’s right! People today DO write songs. What a concept!

Songs by Alice in Chains (“Angry Chair”) and Coldplay (“Lost”) have an attractive lyricism to them; the Trio takes these tunes and shifts around the meter and speed, using musical Play-Do to create an elastic piece of music. Z’s touch is expansive and wondrous, while Hakim is as lithe as a gazelle on Depeche Mode’s “In Your Room “ and “King Of Pain.” Logical but never predictable, the trio puts fresh wine into fairly new wineskins on a remarkably successful release. Please, come to town!