Denis Levaillant, Barre Phillips & Barry Altschul - Les passagers du delta (2018)

The modern trio was born with this as its sole principle: nothing is forbidden. And a sole obligation: to look in the same direction together yet with each one affirming his personality forcefully and with determination; a definition that strongly resembles that of friendship or even love. That is what the ALP Trio pulls off magnificently here. For the first time, this double album brings together a studio recording made at the Davout Studio in 1986 and a concert recorded live in 1989 on the occasion of the Banlieues Bleues festival. This group, which lasted from 1986 to 1993, was born from the desire of Denis Levaillant, a live wire composer and free pianist, exceptional and unclassifiable. Without a strict 'jazzman' labelling - and that's all for the better! With such playing accomplices as fantastic improvisers Barre Phillips on bass and Barry Altschul on drums.
Denis Levaillant found a magnificent stage name: 'The Passengers of the Delta'. The triangle and travel, two essential words that immediately impose themselves and resonate throughout all the music invented by these three artists of the instant and instinct. Listening to them again today, you tell yourself that time doesn't exist and that this three-way conversation has not aged in the slightest, having kept the same freshness of emotion and provoking the same power of surprises.