Dabin Ryu: Trio!
Endectomorph Music

Hailing from Seoul, jazz pianist Dabin Ryu saw her life take a dramatic turn when a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music, where she double-majored in Piano Performance and Jazz Composition, transitioned into a Master's from the Manhattan School of Music and acceptance into Juilliard's Artist Diploma Program. Other accomplishments include her 2021 debut album Wall, multiple awards and commissions, and a posting as Associate Professor in the Piano Department at Berklee. It was her illuminating experience with drummer Johnathan Blake during The Jazz Gallery's 2023 Mentoring Series that proved pivotal, however, in the creation of her sophomore album with Blake and bassist Joe Martin. The excitement she felt collaborating with these mentors emanates from every second of its nine performances.

Ryu's humility is refreshing and endearing, from her amazement that Blake and Martin did the project with her to the self-doubt she experienced during and after the recording, as expressed in her words, “I kept feeling like I wasn't ready to make an album with musicians of this caliber.” Anyone listening to Trio! might be surprised to discover she was dealing with such feelings when her playing is so assured and authoritative. There's nothing tentative about her attack, no matter how much her partners had to do with inspiring her to operate at such a high level. One of her goals for the album was to showcase herself as a player and in her words “create a trio record that truly introduces ‘the piano player me' to the world.” At the same time, she wanted to present a band identity and the trio as a unified voice.

Trio! meets both goals handily in her three originals and personal favourites by Mary Lou Williams, Kenny Dorham, Oscar Pettiford, John Hicks, and others. Recorded at Jaybird Studio on November 9, 2024, the album feels carefully planned, but its performances teem with chemistry, spontaneity, and invention. In mixing her pieces with those of masters and in recording the album in a single day, the release aligns itself to classic jazz albums of the past. There's nothing retrograde about the sensibility in play, however, and the vigour and excitement the three brought to the session are keenly felt.

Ryu's own “Vertigo” initiates the set on a rollicking high with a Monkish, roller coaster-like melodic arc and responsive combustion from Blake and Martin. The seeming ease with which the three navigate such heady terrain is stunning and testifies to their connection; the way her partners respond to her every gesture is one of the album's major sources of pleasure, and the ferocity with which all three contribute to the performance makes good on the leader's unified trio concept. The pace slows for a deep, bluesy reading of John Stubblefield's “Baby Man,” Ryu demonstrating that she's just as comfortable playing with nuance and restraint when the material demands it and her colleagues expressively complementing her at every turn. Speaking of tricky, look no further than Williams' “In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee,” a boppish tune as playful as its title sounds.

Ryu's second original “The Well“ sees the trio delving into sensitive balladry, Blake's brushes animating the piece and an agile Martin waxing reflectively in his solo. As the energy rises, the drummer's aggressive stick-work pushes the pianist to freer flights of fancy before the gentler tone of the intro reasserts itself. An even deeper ballad plunge arrives with her “Sad Song,” a contemplative reverie that spotlights Ryu's lyrical side and draws from the others textural shadings. Her comfort level in ballad playing is also conveyed in the trio's expert handling of the trumpeter's “Dorham's Epitaph,” the entire history of jazz piano playing seeming to emerge in her tasteful blues-tinged rendering. Elsewhere, the trio imbues Hicks' “Naima's Love Song” with a radiant reading buoyed by samba-like swing, and Vincent Youmans' oft-covered “I Want to be Happy” explodes with joy during the trio's light-speed run-through.

August 2025