Tom Rainey above left, Mary Halvorson and Ingrid Laubrock
Their own veritable game of thrones, the appearance next month of the Tom Rainey Trio comes with a sense of heightened expectations. It’s for artistic and scarcity reasons, as word has spread since releasing the shatteringly acerbic Pool School in 2010, an album that marked late starter Rainey’s first foray as a leader; and because they’re a band hard to locate live, at least beyond the usual suspect New York clubs. Drummer Rainey has worked with Tim Berne, Wilco’s Nels Cline, and piano giant Fred Hersch to name just a few of his stellar associations, and appears for these must-hear appearances with hardcore German avant garde saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, and Brooklyn guitarist Mary Halvorson, probably the hottest new guitarist on the New York improv scene right now. Halvorson’s style has been summed up by the Penguin Guide’s Brian Morton memorably as ‘anti-guitar’, and, surely, plugged in within this simpático unit will rise to the occasion in two venues more than used to conjuring the true spirit of the improvising ethic from seemingly out of nowhere. MB
The trio plays the Crescent, Belfast on 6 June http://www.crescentarts.org; and Vortex, London six days later www.vortexjazz.co.uk