TRE

This Swedish band was formed by keyboardist Per Tjernberg back in 1972 when he was in grade 8 ! The young lads were influenced by the complex music of Zappa to the Free Jazz stylings of Coltrane / Shepp / Sanders to the minimalistic music of Terry Riley. It was the arrival of Jorgen Adolfsson (a "real musician" as Per puts it) with his knowledge of traditional music from all over the world that their music widened considerably. Jorgen played violin, sax, guitar, flute, mandolin and more.Their real life heroes were the grown-ups in FLASKET BRINNER , TRAD GRAS & STENNAR and Don Cherry who was living in Sweden at the time. The cool thing was that members from these two bands I just mentioned as well as Don Cherry were all members of ARCHIMEDES BADKAR at some point. The early years of this band were very open and free times where just about anyone could get up and play with them and there would be a light show and people extravagantley dressed on stage dancing etc. Perhaps SUN RA was an influence. It wasn't until this third album "Tre" recorded in 1977 that things became more tightly structured. They were a seven piece band at this point including lots of horns (sax, trumpet, clarinet) as well as tablas, mandolin, violin, vibes and more. Certainly Jazz / Fusion is the prominant flavour but we do get those African rhythms and Middle-Eastern stylings.

"Badidoom" is an incredible opener. Lots of percussion and piano as the horns play over top. This is just a joy throughout as they seem to jam. "Wildlife" has nature sounds that fill the air, in fact I feel like i'm somewhere in the middle of the woods. "Akombah" has this collage of intricate sounds. Interesting stuff and there's whistles too. "Bhajaj" as you might guess from the song's title has an Eastern vibe with lots of percussion and tablas. Violin a minute in. "Slum" has piano melodies. Drums and recorder take over. Sax replaces recorder before 2 1/2 minutes.

Thumb Piano" has these intricate sounds throughout. It's kind of cool. "Suite (Pharoah-El Legend-Marrakeck)" is another amazing track just like the opening number. Piano, percussion and more as the horns join in quickly. It's more intense before 2 1/2 minutes. How good is this ! An incredible section right to the end. Screaming sax 4 minutes in and later at 6 minutes. "Desert Band" has percussion,recorder and more as we get an ethnic flavour. "Tzivaeri" has intricate acoustic guitar to open that becomes strummed as gentle recorder and more follow. "Nomads" ends it with an ominous horn melody before the music comes in and builds. I like this a lot.

So an excellent album that will appeal to EMBRYO fans.Easily 4 stars.