Act II by Actual Trio

The Actual Trio had the fortune for many years to play a once a month gig in Oakland. Many people came every month, and that support and informed listening was a wonderful spur for the trio to workshop new material, take risks, and reach for higher things. We express our gratitude for this, and hope that it can continue in a new venue. We are also thankful to John Zorn for releasing our first record and to Hans Wendl and Adam Mũnoz for their tremendous work on both of them. It also an honor to have an original work by the great Han Bennink grace our cover; thank you Mr. Bennink for your incredible lifetime achievement.

As the music for this record was coming together during the spring and summer of 2016, I was struck by how happy, how joyful the compositions sounded to me. The trio’s identity had really come together, through recording and touring, the music was more us, and that fed into writing for the group, and it was shaping up to be a great winter.

By December, the time of our long-scheduled recording session, that happiness was face to face with our looming national catastrophe. The trio, Hans, Adam—all of us involved were profoundly shaken by the US election. I wondered if I wanted to go through with the recording.

But soon enough the role music plays in my life asserted itself. This is what I do, and this music exemplifies what I believe in. You listen, and you play what you want to hear. You play with people, and for people. It’ll all be over soon enough, so for heaven’s sake, get your friends together and sing!

And so I think there’s joy, anger, love, anxiety, vulnerability and resolve in this music, and it couldn’t be otherwise. Whatever their inspiration, all of the songs were recorded at this particular historic moment, where each day, each hour, seems urgent, momentous, potentially horrific, but above all, dearly precious.

John Schott June 2017

Actual Trio has performed at The Stone (NYC), Eagle Rock (LA), SFJazz, The Royal Room (Seattle), Firehouse 12 (New Haven) and Outpost 186 (Cambridge). Guitarist/composer John Schott (T.J. Kirk, John Zorn, Tom Waits), bassist Dan Seamans, and drummer John Hanes, all veterans of the Bay Area music scene, make adventurous Jazz, connecting to tradition and reaching forward.

johnschott.com