Bass guitarist Chris Trinidad creates a pair of albums with two distinct groups interpreting his own compositions in two different settings. The Certain Times release has Trinidad with Charlie Gurke/bs, Alex Conde/p and Aaron Kierbel, creating a kind of hip cool feel. Gurke’s molasses rich baritone sax works well on the sleek “Inevitable Evolution” and he gets quite lyrical on the modern sounding “A Reading In Retrospect”. Trindad keeps a funky pulse for “Though C ertainly Speaking” while Conde is Bill Evansy classy for “Jungle Street” and the pretty “Transcending December”. Graceful grooves.
For the Changing Tides team, Trinidad makes the sound fuller with Reggie Padilla/saxes, Jamie Dubberly/tb, Miguelito Valdes/tp-fh, Evan Francis/fl, Alex Hand/g, Christian Tumalan/p, David Rokeach/dr and Jose Sanchez/perc. Francis’ flute works well on the mellow and easy “Inevitable Evolution”, with Valdes’ trumpet bright and clear on the rich post bop “A Reading In Retrospect”. The team calypsos with Padilla’s soprano sax on “Transcending December” and Rokeach gets soulful with Trinidad on the Latinized “Something New In The Familiar”. Fascinating to see how the different charts bring out creative colors.