Dancing On Thin Ice

Trombone, sax, bass trio. Straight-up jazz with a modern feel, in an overall calm vein, quite a laid-back session (having no drums helps keep the fireworks down). Built on rhythms that frequently make you forget there's no drummer.

The leader is Marc McGrain on trombone, who also did all the compositions. On a couple of tracks, he does the trick of singing into the trombone, which produces some weird sounds (but he doesn't use it for the abstract air that Jen Baker does). Often it's distracting and doesn't really add to the music.

Tim Green on sax and James singleton on bass. Recorded in New Orleans. It's their second album; we appear to also have the first (on Accurate Records, from 1996).

1- Perky midtempo horns, maybe shades of '70s cop-show music (but not that manic)
2- A sneaky little groove, catchy and slowish.
3- Pleasantly rolling. Percolating horn melody over a fast bass
4- Slowish, the instruments feeling out riffs like a game.
5- Distortion: a buzzy bass riff, with gloopy vocodor-like sounds later. Doesn't quite work; it's like a living-room jazz band after a trip to Fry's.
6- A cute upbeat composition, with occasional weird sounds (vocalizing into the trumpet, I'm guessing.)
7- A fun one, in a subtle way. Touches of New Orleans.
8- Midtempo and lightly sad, like a funeral dirge
9- Lightly chugging march (58 seconds long)
10- Airy, hopeful
11- A short happy piece with a touch of bluesiness in the bass