Another Friday night special in the Jewellery Quarter.
This week’s offering from Birmingham Jazz comes in the form of a genuine new twenty-first century band mixing contemporary rhythms and beats, with classical and jazz influences.
The music of Trio HLK is dense with complex rhythms and textures, and virtuosic improvisation. Their pieces are strewn with temporal distortions, modulations, implied modulations, rhythmic tricks, and harmonic ambiguities. Whilst they reference a huge and disparate range of styles, their sound distils and unifies them with a unique 
Audiences and critics inevitably confuse the meeting point of the composed and the improvised, an effect achieved by countless hours the band has spent practicing together. The resulting music operates on several levels, making it accessible and cerebral at the same time. Trio HLK’s music sounds genuinely fresh, and genuinely new.
Trio HLK’s music draws primarily on contemporary classical music and jazz. Many of their pieces take material from existing jazz standards such as fragments of melody or harmony. These are the raw material for intricate new pieces; resulting in familiar threads leading the listener into distant territory. HLK are fascinated by rhythmic and harmonic ambiguities, and their music endeavours to play with the listener’s perception and expectations.
Last New Year’s Day the trio were rehearsing an extremely corrupted version of Blue In Green (from Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue album) when a framed poster of Miles fell off the wall and smashed. They took this as a good omen, a sign of approval from innovative Davis .
Friday 6th July, 1000 Trades, 16 Frederick Street, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, B1 3HE. Admission £12.50/Members £10/Students £5.