Rudresh Mahanthappa Hero Trio

It’s not surprising that pride of place in alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa’s pantheon would belong to the legendary Charlie Parker, who served as the inspiration for “Bird Calls,” the quintet (and 2015 album of the same name) that dazzled critics and audiences worldwide—including here in Humboldt, when they winged into the Kate Buchanan Room in October 2016. For the follow-up, Rudresh pared things down to a trio of superfriends—himself, bassist François Moutin, and drummer Rudy Royston—and opened things up to a broad array of personal idols: Bird again, plus other saxophone colossi like Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Lee Konitz, and Ornette Coleman; but also 70s jazz superstars like Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, and Chuck Mangione, as well as pop and country icons like Stevie Wonder and Johnny Cash, whose work Mahanthappa has always found “beautiful, humorous, pensive, and utterly joyful.”