McGill + Manring + Stevens in 3 albums (Addition by Subtraction 2001, Controlled by Radio 2002, and What we Do 2006) by request

A lot of beautiful crazy energetic music in these, but not so much in the way of CD cover art-- I won't say more about that.

Information on this trio here. Looks like all 3 share composition credits-- making me think it's perhaps mostly jamming improvisations--with some suggestions-- and in terms of instrumentation, Scott McGill is the guitarist, Michael Manring is bassist, which would make Vic Stevens therefore percussionist. 

I think their first release is the most obviously thought-through and therefore impressive, or at least,  listenable.  The second one is not only unbelievably long, splayed out over 2 full CDs but also mostly free jazz as far as I can tell, unless the compositions are so complex as to be atonal.  One drawback is that it gets a bit tiresome with the repeated noodling and meandering guitarlines, like a chaos theory form of the German classic trio Dzyan, and the monochromatic quality, lacking in keyboards or any other instruments or even other guitar sounds makes it a bit of an endurance run.

The third oddly enough features covers, admittedly quite unusually original, of jazz standards like Naima, Oleo and even the tired old 'Blue in Green' who really deserves a quiet retirement like Jay Leno.

Title track from the first album:

Four Fields, which almost but not quite closes out the record, features some more delicate arpeggiation for a change, and note the ethereal sound of the bowed guitar (played with a violin bow):

 

It's a bit disappointing to me however that the chordal / arpeggio pattern doesn't change for the whole 5 minutes.

Sigh, I just wish the wonderful playing could be better exhibited in some pared-down and more concentrated, focused pieces, and with more variety in sound and instrumentation. Then these albums would be really something.

And every once in a while McGill pulls out the ol' acoustic and plays something more sensitive, though not usually more than once or twice per album, as in Winter's Tale from 2002: