Dream Archives

The trio-debut of pianist, composer and 2025 MacArthur Fellow Craig Taborn with Tomeka Reid and Ches Smith has been eagerly awaited. In its review of the group’s live show from Fall 2025 the German daily Hamburger Abendblatt raved how they “belong to the forefront of the American Jazz Avant-garde”, and distinguished their performance from a strict jazz context, noting, “this is rather ‘New Music’ – unpredictable, exhilarating and not in the slightest bit simple.” And the trio’s approach on Dream Archives is indeed full of complexity, yet as the title suggests, a wide musical spectrum is covered as multitudes of idioms seem to be pulled from history and reconfigured to form a previously unheard sound world full of reveries. Dancing grooves and powerful lyrical accounts also arise in otherwise densely orchestrated trio interchanges – four extensive Taborn-originals making up the foundation. Sometimes Craig wears his influences on his sleeve, and with the trio’s passes at Paul Motian’s “Mumbo Jumbo” and Geri Allen’s “When Kabuya Dances” two of his most important ones are paid homage to in masterful fashion. Tomeka on cello juggles with melodic lead on the one handand a pizzicato bass bedrock on the other, coalescing – with tension – with Ches Smith’s versatile sound array and Craig’s comprehensive grasp of the keyboard. Dream Archives, recorded in New Naven in 2024 and then mixed in Munich 2025, was produced by Manfred Eicher.