Jazz Next 7 Days
773-772-3616Stirrup
Sun., May 26, 10 p.m.Jazz
This scrappy instrumental trio was born in 2009 as the rhythm section of the Horse’s Ha, the elegant folk-rock group fronted by Janet Bean and Jim Elkington. As Stirrup, though, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, bassist Nick Macri, and drummer Charles Rumback have a sound of their own. On their debut album, Sewn (482 Music), hypnotic, unfussily pretty melodies unfold, roil, and mutate over churning ostinatos and shuffling, shape-shifting beats; everyone contributes at least one tune, though Lonberg-Holm wrote the majority. He plays tenor guitar as well as effects-smeared cello, and unsurprisingly he’s the focal point; his extended, lyrical solos hit with the power of psych-rock guitar and tickle the ear with microtonal glissandos a la Arabic or Indian music. Macri generally holds down the songs’ structures, taking only the occasional motific solo, and Rumback toys with the rhythms, teasing out swing patterns, explosive rolls, and skittery flourishes. Stirrup’s easygoing melodic development and loose interactivity obviously matter more to these guys than questions of technique or genre—though there’s a lot to swallow in this music, it all goes down like honey. —Peter Margasak
$7 suggested donation
Gerald Clayton Trio
Thu., May 23, 8 & 10 p.m., Fri., May 24, 8 & 10 p.m., Sat., May 25, 8 & 10 p.m. and Sun., May 26, 4, 8 & 10 p.m.Jazz
Pianist Gerald Clayton has recorded every one of his three albums since moving from his native Los Angeles to New York seven years ago, and in that brief time his music has undergone a dramatic transformation from brisk and lively post-Oscar Peterson postbop to burnished, thoroughly contemporary jazz that borrows rhythmic ideas from hip-hop and dices them up with staggering technique. He pushes even further on his latest album, Life Forum (Concord Jazz), beefing up his core trio of bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Justin Brown with three horn players (trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and saxophonists Logan Richardson and Dayna Stephenson) and two vocalists, Gretchen Parlato and Sachal Vasandani, who add refined wordless singing. Clayton’s dense, translucent arrangements frequently function as set pieces for his improvisations, even when the horns and voices stick to composed material, and he incorporates a pop-soul influence similar to what you’ll hear on records by Parlato and Robert Glasper. Clayton composed all the music, and he often revels in its lush, complex harmonies while the horns and singers move in elegant counterpoint against the core trio’s fleet movements—on the hard-driving “Some Always,” for instance, he and Akinmusire play an extended passage in precise unison over a churning, frenetic groove. When it’s just the core trio, as on the skittering “Sir Third,” the borderline telepathic rapport Clayton has developed with the band comes to the fore, especially when he and Brown navigate rapid-fire tangles of rhythmic displacements or trade phrases so quickly your ears barely have time to process the exchanges. I’d love to hear the full ensemble play this music, but the trio is so sharp that these new pieces will survive the transition just fine. —Peter Margasak
$20-$45
