Last weekend, pianist Bill Mays wrapped up a tour of the west with his Inventions Trio, which includes trumpeter and flugelhornist Marvin Stamm and cellist Alisa Horn. Longtime collaborators in several projects, Mays and Stamm also played a duo concert in The Seattle Art Museum’s Art of Jazz series.
Sunday afternoon, segments of the concert will be broadcast and streamed on Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest. From Mr. Wilke’s announcement:
Describing what they do as “a musical conversation” the longtime friends and musical partners eschew long solos in favor of frequent exchanges of melody and improvisation. Their concert at SAM included original compositions, standards and jazz classics. Highlights from the concert will air on Jazz Northwest, on 88.5 KPLU on Sunday, October 18 at 2 PM Pacific.
Across the mountains from Seattle, The Inventions Trio played a Friday night concert at TheSeasons Performance Hall in Yakima, Washington. The next evening, Bill played and I narrated our History of Jazz Piano. We may do it next year at a European festival. Negotiations are in progress.
From a few years ago, here are Stamm and Mays with guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Ed Soph. Stamm wrote “Samba du Nancy†with Mrs. Stamm in mind. The video is slightly out of focus. The music is not.