The word ‘jazz’ implies musicians who listen and interact; people who never play it the same way once. The Trio has those qualities in abundance, but the group’s music is also something over, around, above and below jazz. Some use qualifiers like ‘near-jazz’, ‘neo-jazz’, or ‘stadium-jazz’ to break out of the ‘old-man-jazz’ straightjacket. Phrases like that act as trigger-warnings that what the Trio plays ain’t always going to fit, or be nice. The group’s roots are firmly planted in popular music, but it seeks to expand the notion of what it is acceptable or possible to do, or represent, within that genre.

The Trio’s original music is seen as neither ‘better’ nor ‘worse’ than pre-existing repertoire, just another ballpark to play on. A song might start in a country mood, but end in an urban dystopia. A standard might reveal all, but only in the dying embers of its performance. Roth’s own compositions such as ‘Dancing with Grace’, the Trio’s collective compositions such as ‘Trio in Five’ or ‘Looking Forward to Looking Back’, or their reassembling of existing masterworks like Anton Dvorak’s ‘Largo from Symphony #9’ offer but three points of entry into the creative world of the Pete Roth Trio, a world you’re unlikely to leave without reassessing your views of what the guitar trio format remains capable of.