Big Swing Trio

The name Big Swing Trio implies small-group swing; in other words, the sort of small groups that Benny Goodman, Fats Waller, Coleman Hawkins, Art Tatum, and others led during jazz's swing era (roughly 1935-1945, give or take a few years). But stylistically, the Big Swing Trio isn't swing in the way that the Benny Goodman Trio or the Nat "King" Cole Trio were swing. The Big Swing Trio -- Andy Weyl on acoustic piano, Mark Diamond on upright bass, and Paul Romaine on drums -- has focused on hard bop and post-bop (two styles of jazz that came along after the swing era). Their sound isn't a '30s or early '40s sound, but rather, is firmly planted in the straight-ahead acoustic jazz of the '50s and '60s; and many of the songs that they perform (such as Sonny Clark's "Voodoo," Horace Silver's "Those Pretty Eyes," and the Miles Davis/Victor Feldman standard "Seven Steps to Heaven") were composed long after the swing era ended. In fact, Weyl, Diamond, and Romaine have acknowledged that their name is "somewhat misleading, in that people think we are limited to playing 'swing' music;" however, they're quick to add that even though they aren't really swing, their hard bop and post-bop does swing. And that part isn't misleading at all; they aren't swing in the Goodman/Artie Shaw/Duke Ellington/Count Basie sense, but they are definitely a hard-swinging (and very straight-ahead) group. As a pianist, Weyl has been influenced by improvisers who include Silver, McCoy Tyner, Bud Powell, Cedar Walton, and Kenny Barron (among others). Although the Big Swing Trio was officially formed in Denver, CO, in the early 2000s, the musicians had known each other since at least the early '80s. Weyl, Diamond, and Romaine are all veterans of the Denver jazz scene; Weyl and Diamond played together as...