dreadpirateroberts Mostly live from the Havana Jam Festival in 1979, the ‘Trio of Doom’ album comes from something of a supergroup in terms of line-up, but also from something less than a side project, the trio apparently having been assembled expressly for the live show. While the three later recorded in the studio too, those pieces are not are raw as the live set, and suffer in comparison.

With Williams, McLaughlin and Pastorious together here, expectations should be high, though for me, they aren’t met. The line between ‘exciting improvisation’ and ‘aimlessness’ is criss-crossed too often for me, in spite of great individual performances and a wonderful ‘togetherness.’ Tony Williams is impressive, almost monstrous throughout the live tracks, while the studio cuts seem to pale with its cleaner sound and shorter running time. In fact, had the album been a longer live set, I think I’d have enjoyed it more. Taken together, the overall effect is almost redundant. I understand the desire to record in a controlled environment, but the studio versions, especially that of the powerful ‘Dark Prince’ (composed by McLaughlin,) don’t contain much fire and I feel the ‘Trio of Doom’ album would have been more memorable without them.

Jaco’s ‘Continuum’ is quite nice, it even approaches soothing and William’s ‘Para Oriente’ is probably the stand out, bringing some funk to their jamming and taking the piece all over the map at times. Passages of ‘Are you the One, Are you the One?’ represent some of the more unsatisfying moments, as if the three players were struggling for something memorable but never quite found it. In fact, that’s partly the problem for this one, though at the same time it is by no means a horrible release. I’m torn between suggesting this for fans only, especially of Williams who is the element who could have brought things up to three stars for me, even if ultimately, this is two albums in one. The live and the studio. And because the studio versions don’t bring much to the table, it’s not really a three star record in my book.