The Power and Poetry of Three

A lot of fine music has shivered the timbers and massaged ears at the Grand on State, since its opening — soft and otherwise — several months ago. But in some way, the arrival of eminent jazz drummer Peter Erskine on Saturday felt like an official christening of what is potentially a vibrant new addition to the small network of West Coast jazz clubs.

What the versatile Erskine brought to the sold-out show was an inspiring display of world-class jazz piano trio work, featuring his open-eared and spider-fingered allies Alan Pasqua on piano and Darek Oles on bass. A general impression on this listener and the room at large: this is how it’s done. 

Although Erskine has been based in Los Angeles for a few decades, teaching at USC through his recent departure in 2023, we can count on one hand the times he’s drifted up to Santa Barbara to play over the decades. Those occasions have been diverse enough to help paint a picture of his eclectic versatility. Most recently, he played literally next door to the Grand at the Granada with the Pacific Jazz Orchestra (more, please). 

Going further back, he showed up at the Arlington and Campbell Hall with the fusion-but-better supergroup Weather Report. Cut to a fringe pop-up show with Buell Neidlinger and Marty Krystall at the short-lived Garden Street Theater (where the Alano Club now sits).

But Saturday’s show found him sitting pretty, feisty and incurably subtle, in the time-honored tradition of the piano trio. It’s a format he has become fluent in, going back to a classic ’90s-founded trio with British pianist John Taylor and Swedish bassist Palle Danielsson. You can hear the fruits of that liaison on four fine ECM albums. 

And we could hear the fruits of his current L.A.-based trio very much live and alive, basking in the elegant intimacy of the new Grand o State. Fittingly, references were made to piano trio pillars of the past, opening with Keith Jarrett’s easy medium-swing tune “Bop-Be” (title track of his 1977 album) and paying implied tribute, in compositional and pianistic style, to Bill Evans with Pasqua’s lyrical ballad “Contemplation.”

It should be noted that, while Erskine has the broadest and boldest jazz scene profile in this threesome, both Pasqua and Oles are stellar creative forces whose accolades might be louder had they not been West Coast–based for most of their careers. Pasqua remains one of the strongest pianists on the West Coast, one tasteful and with his lights ever on as he goes.

For his part, Pasqua, also a fine and diversely directed composer, served as the evening’s unofficial “composer in residence,” to quote Erskine. His handiwork ranged from a tribute nod to the late, great Chick Corea, “Dear Chick” — with Corea’s signature harmonic colors and rhythmic moves — and, with arranger hat on, a lyrical piano trio-fitted rethink on Jimmy Webb’s masterpiece “Wichita Lineman.” (Hear that on the trio’s current album Peregrine here).

They called up two original variation-on-a-chordal-theme songs based on “rhythm changes” (the iconic chord progression from “I Got Rhythm”) — Pasqua’s cheerful yet sly “Chillypso” and, in the second set, Erskine’s “David’s Blues.” Tellingly, that tune is based on an improvisational exercise the drummer remembers from an improv class at Indiana University, led by famed educator David Baker. The teacher persona embedded in Erskine’s skin emerges in song and sometimes in his between-song banter.

Erskine is a benevolent leader, giving his trio-mates generous spotlight time while consistently shining in his own way. As both “accompanist” and soloist, he was always nuanced and with fresh ideas over generic feels or licks, letting the music guide him. He cut loose late in the show, on his more intense tune “Bulgaria,” showing the higher end of his dynamic range and chops — testing the heat limits of the room. That urgent, time-signature-fluid tune also gave rise to Pasqua’s most atonal and “outside” work.

For standards’ sake, the trio took a sumptuous dip in “Like Someone in Love,” but this was primarily an original tune kinda night, right through to the closer of Oles’s own, easy-does-it swinger, “The Honeymoon.” 

This trio is well past its honeymoon phase, and the marriage seems as strong as can be. Chalk one up for jazz piano trio tradition, on fire on State on a Saturday night. Catch them next time, but grab your tickets early. It’s a hot one — the ticket and the music, that is.