By Don Berryman
With a sophisticated groove, Hammond B3 organist Larry Goldings, guitarist Peter Bernstein, and drummer Bill Stewart comprise a group that is arguably the finest jazz organ trio performing today. Each member is a modern jazz master in his own right with resumes listing collaborations with a who’s who of jazz from the 90’s and into the new millenium. They are releasing their Twelfth trio album together, Rhombus, on Smoke Sessions Records (out on August 7th). They will be celebrating the release with five nights of live shows at Smoke Jazz Club in New York City on August 19-23, 2026 (tickets available at https://tickets.smokejazz.com/)
Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein, and Bill Stewart started playing together around 1990 in New York. In a way, they have come full circle since their early gig at Augie’s Jazz Bar in Manhattan 35 years ago. Augie’s is gone but this trio goes on, and they now play at Smoke Jazz Club which opened in Augie’s old space in 1999. Rhombus isn’t their first Smoke Sessions recording, in 2022 they recorded another record for Smoke Sessions, Perpetual Pendulum.
Their very first album, Intimacy of the Blues, was released 35 years ago in 1991 on the Verve label. Since then their music has deepened as the group grew more cohesive, as you would expect after almost four decades of collaboration and musical exploration. As Dan Emerson noted in his review of the Goldings/Bernstein/Stewart trio Dakota concert for Jazz Police, “In the creative, improvised music world, it’s often true that familiarity breeds success – as measured in artistic achievement”. As Goldings described it “We’re still discovering new freedoms through playing with each other, having grown as musicians and as people. We’re all very eclectic in our musical tastes, and the continuing challenge is to figure out how to make these disparate compositions sound like us.” You can hear that the challenge was met on Rhombus which features tunes by Keith Jarrett, Randy Weston, Abdullah Ibrahim, Wayne Shorter, Thelonious Monk, and Irving Berlin along with two originals by Goldings and Bernstein.
Larry Goldings has topped both the critics and readers Downbeat polls for the past several years, since the passing of Joey DeFrancesco in 2022. It seems that Goldings has inherited the top organist mantle from DeFranscesco, although you hear more of a Larry Young post-bop influence in his approach than the Jimmy Smith school that Joey favored. In a Downbeat interview by Allen Morrison he described that difference, “… my interests may have been a little more out front and varied than Joey’s, who concentrated on a certain tradition and did it better than anybody. Whereas I’m coming at it from a bunch of different angles. … With the trio, we might play something that’s completely free.“
Goldings was in Jack DeJohnette’s famed Trio Beyond with John Scofield. And in 2007, they received a Grammy nomination in the category of Best Jazz Instrumental Album for their album, Trio Beyond – Saudades (ECM). In that same Downbeat interview by Allen Morrison Goldings describes how that relationship was transformative to him as an organist: “I remember I was playing in Trio Beyond with Jack DeJohnette and John Scofield (circa 2004), and Jack said to me one day, ‘You know, Larry, you don’t always have to walk the bass. You can do something else.’ And I love this idea that just because I’m at the organ doesn’t mean I have to fall into the predictable traditional approach to the instrument. There was something very freeing about Jack saying that. … Just listen and react, and find something different on the instrument. That’s kind of how I think more and more at the organ.”
Rhombus opens gently and slowly on Keith Jarret’s “Everything That Lives Laments“ with Stewart’s rumbling drums and cymbal splashes under the chords that hint at a gathering storm before the tune starts rolling. Golding’s solo is harmonically dense, then sounds like a Bach prelude, before yielding to Bernstein’s expressive solo. Randy Weston’s “Hi-Fly” is an uptempo romp that allows room for exploration. “Rombus” is the title track and was composed by Larry Goldings, and true to the geometrical nature of its title, it has an angular feel like a Larry Young composition. Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Mamma” keeps the gospel nature of the tune with the swelling organ. “They Say It’s Wonderful” by Irving Berlin has great solos by all three musicians. Peter Bernstein’s “Dissipation Blues” is probably my favorite track on the albums, it is very hip and bluesy with an incredible groove and relentless momentum. The ballad “Penelope” by Wayne Shorter is played with an expansive soundscape. The mood changes for the very upbeat “In Walked Bud” by Thelonious Monk, it is handled just as one would hope: True to Monk rhythmically with clever harmonies.
Tracks
- Everything That Lives Laments (Keith Jarrett) 7:23
- Hi-Fly (Randy Weston) 7:00
- Rhombus (Larry Goldings) 3:55
- Mamma (Abdullah Ibrahim) 4:44
- They Say It’s Wonderful (Irving Berlin) 6:30
- Dissipation Blues (Peter Bernstein) 5:46
- Penelope (Wayne Shorter) 6:05
- In Walked Bud (Thelonious Monk) 3:57
Rhombus was produced by Paul Stache and recorded on October 20, 2025, at Second Take Sound in New York City. It is being released on LP and digital formats on August 7th.
You can purchase the Rhombus LP, CD, or digital download on Bandcamp: https://larrygoldingspeterbernsteinbillstewart.bandcamp.com/album/rhombus
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