Joel Frahm Trio

Joel Frahm is an heir to icons like John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, and Chris Potter, a muscular modern-day tenor who draws on multiple aspects of the American tradition—jazz, funk, rock, and blues—with what jazz writer Nate Chinen calls “harmonic and rhythmic surefootedness.” His hard-swinging “chordless” trio (with Dan Loomis on bass and Ernesto Cervini on drums) roams territory staked out by Sonny Rollins at the Vanguard back in 1957 and advanced since then by only a select few. With grace and daring, fluency and emotion, this working unit, now nearly a decade old, is earning a place among that elite.

Frahm grew up in Wisconsin, but as a teenager he moved with his family to Connecticut, where he befriended high-school classmate (and future piano legend) Brad Mehldau. Studies at Rutgers and the Manhattan School of Music led to a stint in vocalist Betty Carter’s formative Jazz Ahead workshop, then career jumpstarts playing…