Dave Bass is a jazz pianist who just can’t sit still stylistically — Bach, bebop, Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms, gospel, pop, it all shows up in his latest album. Trio Nuevo, Vol. 3 wraps up a trilogy he started in 2024 with bassist Tyler Miles and drummer Steve Helfand, and you can hear what brilliant conversationalists they’ve become. Helfand skips the usual drum-kit sound for toms and a disengaged snare, which gives the whole record a warmer feel.
The album opens with “Neither Have I Wings,” a Brazilian baião where the piano sets itself up right away as the voice of the record — the thing that carries its identity. The trio builds out from there, and by the end it’s at full ignition, the three of them constantly finding balance with each other.
Then comes “Toccata,” and this is where the trio’s size really works in their favor: the power of Bach somehow feels more profound coming from just three musicians, with nowhere for it to hide. Bass opens with his own composed passage before the three-part fugue kicks in, and the trio passes back and forth through it, each round amplifying the fugue’s strength rather than just repeating it.
“The Water Is Wide” is one of those melodies that speaks to you instantly, and the arrangement drops it into a contemporary emotional register without losing what made it timeless. “Fingerprints-Gantry” pairs Chick Corea with one of Bass’s own gospel pieces, and the two fit together like a glove.
“When You Wish Upon a Star” is the heart-tugger here — a song you’ve known since childhood, heard now, much later, like sitting in a classic piano bar. It evokes not just the old wonder of it but the longing that comes with time itself, delivered gently, with new harmonies layered underneath.
“Black Swan” takes Tchaikovsky’s famously formal music and loosens it into something with real groove — ironic, because a piece you’d associate with ballet now suddenly makes you want to dance. “Work” runs on the dynamics between the musicians, and it pulls the listener into their own kind of kinetic participation.
The sequencing really shows its hand on “Try a Little Tenderness,” which lands right after “Work” and somehow reaches back to deepen it, not just move the album forward. “Lost Mambo” conjures a whole mambo atmosphere out of just three players, a nice reminder that piano is an underrated rhythm instrument. “Far and Wee” borrows its title from a recurring phrase in an E.E. Cummings poem, and the piece matches that poem’s loose, free-verse spirit.
The closer, “You Lose,” feels almost like a bonus track — playful, like the trio’s earned the right to just cut loose after ten tracks of proving themselves. Fittingly, it’s another melody over a chord progression, echoing the contrafact idea from “Fingerprints-Gantry” earlier in the record.
All in all, Trio Nuevo, Vol. 3 closes out the trilogy with confidence, moving between Bach, Tchaikovsky, Corea, Monk, gospel, and pop without ever feeling scattered. The sequencing does real work, and the chemistry between Bass, Miles, and Helfand only deepens as it goes. If this is Volume 3, Volume 4 is something to genuinely look forward to.
