Pianist/composer Russ Lossing has exercised a balance between
structure and freedom in his music for decades. His trio with
bassist Masa Kamaguchi and drummer Billy Mintz has found that
balance after 25 years of performing together. Their latest release,
Moon Inhabitants, is a fantastic example of their ease in expression
in less than one hundred percent gravity.
Lossing’s trio has had a long career documenting their explorations
with what Lossing calls “almost strict time,” an elastic feeling
of playing around the beat. Their model is the unique trio of
Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, and Paul Motian, an incredible assembly
of musicians who balanced form and freedom. Like the Bley Trio,
Lossing’s group features musicians who are equally adept at playing
traditional jazz forms along with free improvisation.
For Moon Inhabitants, Lossing decided to select a program of
originals balanced with compositions by a variety of other composers,
jazz and classical. The mixture highlights the spectrum of
what the powers that the trio commands.