| Jazz |
Summary: Billy Childs revisits early works on Triumvirate, blending past and present in a bold, inventive jazz trio album.
Billy Childs Triumvirate Review: A Bold Return to Early Works Reimagined
Few artists can claim six Grammy Awards. Billy Childs is one of them, and for years, he has remained a defining presence on the Mack Avenue Records roster. But this is not just another release. It feels, instead, like a return, and perhaps even a quiet reckoning.
From its opening track, the pianist and composer sets a clear tone: boldly contemporary, rhythmically elastic, and restlessly inventive. Yet beneath that forward momentum lies a more reflective impulse. The album draws on material from Childs’s earliest recordings for Windham Hill Records, revisiting compositions that, in his view, never reached the audience they deserved.
“Mack Avenue gave me the opportunity to return to a small-group format for the first time since those Windham Hill sessions,” Childs explains. “Part of my motivation in choosing these works came from a lingering regret that those albums didn’t reach a wider audience.”
The decision pays off immediately. Those early recordings carried a sense of openness, a creative looseness, that now reframes Childs’s later output. Over time, some of that youthful immediacy had given way to refinement; here, the two impulses meet. The result is music that feels both rediscovered and reimagined. The compositions retain their emotional clarity, while the new arrangements add depth, tension, and a sense of lived-in authority.
There are moments, an unaccompanied piano introduction that unfolds in near rubato, a sudden shift into a tightly coiled groove, where the past and present seem to converge in real time. Elsewhere, a lyrical theme is stretched and reharmonized until it becomes something entirely new, yet still unmistakably rooted in Childs’s original voice.
For this project, Childs is joined by two exceptional collaborators: bassist Matt Penman and drummer Ari Hoenig. A longtime member of the SFJAZZ Collective, Penman has worked with a formidable roster including John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Wayne Shorter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Dave Douglas, Fred Hersch and Madeleine Peyroux. He also co-founded the collective quartet James Farm alongside Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks and Eric Harland.
Hoenig, for his part, brings a singular approach to the drum kit, one that is as melodic as it is rhythmic. His work with ensembles such as the Chris Potter Underground, the Kurt Rosenwinkel Group and the Joshua Redman Elastic Band, as well as with Wayne Krantz, Mike Stern, Richard Bona and Pat Martino, has long established him as one of the most distinctive drummers of his generation.
In the trio format, Childs is at his most expressive. His playing is precise yet fluid, grounded in tradition yet unmistakably contemporary in conception. At times, his phrasing recalls Duke Ellington, not as homage, but in the subtle placement of notes, the architectural shaping of sound. There are passages so absorbing that they momentarily suspend analysis altogether, inviting the listener simply to inhabit the music.
It is as if, in returning to these earlier works, Childs has rediscovered a missing piece of his artistic identity. Though he had not formally recorded with Penman or Hoenig before, the three musicians share a history as part of rhythm sections supporting leading soloists such as Steve Wilson, Chris Potter and Sean Jones. In those contexts, they often carved out space for trio performances, moments that now feel like precursors to this fully realized collaboration.
“Those were always special moments,” Childs recalls. “I had heard Ari in remarkable trio settings, his own group, as well as with Kenny Werner and Jean-Michel Pilc. His sensitivity and his orchestral approach to the drums were astonishing. And Matt is simply a magical musician. Both of them approach music in a way that transcends the trio format. I knew I had to record with them.”
Triumvirate arrives as the follow-up to The Winds of Change (2023), which earned the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album upon release. Over nearly five decades, Childs has maintained a rare dual identity: a celebrated classical composer and a jazz virtuoso with a deeply rooted sense of swing.
The album itself thrives on contrast, between structure and freedom, past and present, refinement and spontaneity. It is undeniably complex, yet consistently inviting. Devotees of straight-ahead jazz will find much to admire in its phrasing and form, while listeners drawn to more contemporary expressions will be struck by its harmonic daring and rhythmic elasticity.
That balance has long defined Childs’s artistry. But here, it feels newly distilled. In revisiting his past, he has not merely revived it, he has reshaped it, revealing not just where he began, but how fully those beginnings still resonate.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, April 7th 2026
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Musicians :
Billy Childs: Piano
Matt Penman: Bass
Ari Hoenig: Drums (except track 8)
Track Listing :
One Fleeting Instant
Carefree
Like Father Like Son
Heroes
Whisper Not
Ask Me Now
Lazy Afternoon
Flamenco Sketches
Producer: Billy Childs
Production Manager: Myles Weinstein
Recording, Mixing, and Mastering Engineer: Rich Breen
Recorded at Power Station Berklee NYC • May 13-15, 2025
Assistant Engineer: Beth Scott
Mixed and Mastered at Dogmatic Sound in Burbank, CA
℗© 2026 Mack Avenue Records. All rights reserved