Tom Rainey Trio

An inventive and highly respected drummer active in N.Y.C. avant jazz and creative improvised music for three decades, Tom Rainey was content to remain a participant in collaborative sessions or a player on dates led by others -- Kenny Werner, Fred Hersch, Tim Berne, Mark Helias, and many more -- until the time and chemistry seemed right to assume the leadership role in this drums/guitar/saxophone trio. An important catalyst for the Tom Rainey Trio's formation was the arrival in Brooklyn of Germany-born tenor and soprano saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, a key contributor to the London avant jazz scene whom Rainey had first met at a British jazz festival in 2006. The drummer and saxophonist later improvised together and formed an immediate musical connection; Laubrock moved to Brooklyn in 2008 and became an important contributor to the avant jazz/creative improvisation community there, both as leader and collaborator in a number of groups, several of which have also happened to include Rainey. After Rainey and Laubrock played with Mary Halvorson, an Anthony Braxton ensemble member (as Laubrock would later become) who has emerged as one of the most unique improvisational guitar stylists on the Brooklyn scene, the drummer was sufficiently interested in the group dynamic to arrange a session at Brooklyn's Systems Two studio in September 2010 for the threesome to put some of their explorations to tape. Rainey selected 12 concise and varied improvs to be included in the trio's debut disc, Pool School, released later that year by the Clean Feed label (also later that year, Rainey and Laubrock were married). The Tom Rainey Trio's sophomore album, Camino Cielo Echo, arrived on Intakt Records in 2012. ~ Dave Lynch