Tom Rainey Trio

For three decades Tom Rainey has earned recognition as an inventive and highly respected drummer within New York City’s avant jazz and creative improvised music communities. He chose to contribute to collective sessions or serve as a sideman on recordings led by others—including Kenny Werner, Fred Hersch, Tim Berne, Mark Helias, and many additional artists—until circumstances and rapport aligned for him to front a drums-guitar-saxophone trio.

A decisive spark for the Tom Rainey Trio came with the arrival in Brooklyn of Germany-born tenor and soprano saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, already a central figure in London’s avant jazz milieu. Rainey had first encountered her at a British jazz festival in 2006. Subsequent joint improvisations produced an immediate musical rapport. After Laubrock relocated to Brooklyn in 2008 she quickly became a vital participant in the neighborhood’s avant jazz and creative improvisation circles, leading her own ensembles and collaborating in others, several of which also featured Rainey.

Once the drummer worked alongside guitarist Mary Halvorson—an Anthony Braxton ensemble member, the same role Laubrock would later assume—and one of the Brooklyn scene’s most distinctive improvisational guitar stylists, the resulting chemistry prompted Rainey to book a session. In September 2010 the three musicians recorded at Systems Two studio in Brooklyn. Rainey selected twelve concise and varied improvisations for the trio’s debut album, Pool School, issued later that year by Clean Feed; Rainey and Laubrock were married later in 2010 as well. The group’s second recording, Camino Cielo Echo, appeared on Intakt Records in 2012.