Believers - Hard Believer

Taking in this album by the co-led trio Believers led me to their eponymous 2020 debut, with its stunning arrangement of Ralph Towner’s “Waterwheel” from the 1978 ECM trio classic Batik. Towner’s trio with Eddie Gomez and Jack DeJohnette was fully acoustic, with Towner on his customary nylon-string; Believers, by contrast, is electric at its core; guitarist Brad Shepik, bassist Sam Minaie and drummer John Hadfield are keen on widening the sonic spectrum with effects, a touch of fuzztone and subtle post-production. Like Towner, they broaden our idea of what trio music can sound like. John Scofield’s early ’80s trio with Steve Swallow and Adam Nussbaum is perhaps another reference point.

Hard Believer includes four Shepik pieces, including the lyrical and flowing title track, as well as Minaie’s doom metal-ish closer “Rocinante,” Hadfield’s surging, Squarepusher-esque “Broken English” and Steve Swallow’s “Falling Grace.” The last, heard in a bright odd-meter arrangement, is the closest to canonical post-’70s jazz, with a blend of guitar and electric bass that can’t help but evoke Pat Metheny’s Bright Size Life. Shepik’s “Pilgrimage” has elements of this as well. But the guitarist’s fluency with odd-meter phrasing and improvisation speaks to his immersion in Balkan and other non-Western music, and Hadfield’s occasional use of dumbek and other world percussion brings out this element as well.

https://jazztimes.com/blog/new-5-top-jazz-releases-march-2025/