The Fred Frith Trio is a

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

based experimental music and free improvising group featuring Fred Frith, Jason Hoopes and Jordan Glenn. They were formed in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

in 2013, released two studio albums on

Intakt Records Intakt Records is an independent record label, based in Zürich. History The label was founded in 1986 by Patrik Landolt.Margasak, Peter (September 2013) "Intakt's Landolt Takes Long-Term Approach to Avant-Garde". ''Down Beat''. p. 16. In the ea ...

in 2016 and 2018, and toured Europe in 2015 and 2017, and Brazil in 2018. Canadian music critic Raul da Gama described the Fred Frith Trio as " ree extravagantly creative musicians employed in making music like we’ve never heard before". '' DownBeat'' magazine critic

Peter Margasak Peter Margasak is a music critic, journalist, and artistic director of the annual Frequency Festival in Chicago, an event that grew out of his longstanding work programming the weekly Frequency Series for experimental, improvised, and contemporary ...

said they are "a scrappy improvising trio" who "deftly" revisit many of Frith's musical endeavors in "a gritty, unified attack". Andy Robson wrote in the British monthly, ''

Jazzwise ''Jazzwise'', launched in 1997, is the UK jazz monthly magazine. ''Jazzwise'' has a broad sub-genre coverage, from jazz, improv, hard bop, and jazz-rock to bebop and classic jazz, and also covers jazz crossover, including jazz-funk, jazz hip-h ...

'' that they "conjure improvised soundscapes that defy definition". Comparisons have been made to

Massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

, but Robson said the Fred Frith Trio have a sound that is "beguilingly, more delicately sharing, more teasing and 'thinner than that of the New York City trio. Musician and educator Kevin Coultas wrote that the trio is one of Frith's "most superlative" bands since

Henry Cow Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler, b ...

Biography

The Fred Frith Trio comprises English guitarist Fred Frith, American bassist Jason Hoopes, and American drummer/percussionist Jordan Glenn. Frith was a founding member of the English

avant-rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...

group

, and from 1999 has been teaching musical improvisation at

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

. Hoopes and Glenn are members of the Oakland experimental song group Jack O' The Clock. The Fred Frith Trio was formed in Oakland in 2013 and began playing at several local live venues. The naming of the trio was "an accident", and had been suggested "as a joke" by guitarist

Ava Mendoza Ava Mendoza is an American guitarist, vocalist, and composer. An avant-garde artist whose work is described as traversing a number of genres, Mendoza has performed with a wide range of musicians, including Nels Cline, Matana Roberts, Nick Zinner, ...

, who had shared the bill with them at one of their early concerts. While Frith was not happy about being headlined, the promoters liked it and the name stuck. In February 2015 the trio toured Europe, performing in Croatia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. They toured Europe again in February 2017, performing in Norway, Austria, Turkey, France, Poland, Italy and Germany. In August 2018 the trio played in Brazil with jazz trumpeter Susana Santos Silva and performance artist Heike Liss. Frith said "When I proposed this trio I had nothing in mind beyond getting together with a couple of formidable musicians who I love and respect and seeing what would happen". It was not until after their first European tour that "some themes ... start demerging". Frith explained that he found himself drawing on his "earliest rock and roll experiences", and with Hoopes' "stunning ability to wring every-thing there is to be wrung out of an electric bass" and Glenn's "playful, irreverent, and absolute authority ... ything can happen. Really. It's a bloody great feeling." In January 2016 the trio recorded their debut album, ''

Another Day in Fucking Paradise ''Another Day in Fucking Paradise'' is a 2016 studio album by the Fred Frith Trio, a San Francisco Bay Area based experimental music and free improvising group featuring Fred Frith, Jason Hoopes and Jordan Glenn. It is their debut album and ...

'', which was released in June 2016. The album was generally well received by critics: Glenn Astarita described the album in ''

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'' as a "hardcore off-centered delicacy", while Chris Baber, writing in ''Jazz Views'', called it "an exhilarating and explosive kicking against the doors of improvised music". The trio recorded their second studio album, '' Closer to the Ground'' in January 2018, which was released in September 2018. It was also generally well received, with Karl Lippegaus for the German radio station

WDR 3 WDR 3 is a German public radio station owned and operated by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (''West German Broadcasting Cologne''; WDR, ) is a German public-broadcasting institution based in the Federal State of North ...

describing it as a tangle of "complex soundscapes", and '' DownBeat'' magazine music critic

writing that melodies surface occasionally, but the trio focuses on "exploring the nexus of groove and mood" without remaining in one place for too long.

Discography

Studio albums

*''

'' (2016, CD,

) *'' Closer to the Ground'' (2018, CD, Intakt Records)

Live albums

*''

Road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

'' (2021, 2xCD, Intakt Records) – with guests Susana Santos Silva and

Lotte Anker Lotte Anker (born 1958 Copenhagen) is a Danish jazz saxophonist, and composer. With pianist Marilyn Crispell, she serves as one of the co-leaders of the Copenhagen Art Ensemble. Musical career Anker studied music at the Copenhagen University f ...

Other album appearances

* Fred Frith: '' All Is Always Now – Live at The Stone'' (2019, 3xCD, Intakt, Switzerland) – includes two Fred Frith Trio tracks

Members

* Fred Frith – electric guitar, keyboards, voice *Jason Hoopes – electric bass, double bass *Jordan Glenn – drums, percussion

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fred Frith Trio American experimental rock groups Free improvisation ensembles Musical groups established in 2013 Musicians from Oakland, California Intakt Records artists 2013 establishments in California