The Joshua Trinidad Trio

Jazz is something most artists get better at as they grow older, accumulate experiences and learn to translate their souls into sound. At the tender age of 23, Joshua Trinidad already has an incredible head start. Invention, his debut as a leader, is an adventurous disc that filters melody and introspection through the feverish, unchecked energy of an amateur. Trinidad clearly possesses chops, though, as well as a clear sense of history. The specter of Miles Davis looms over the rookie trumpeter, an inescapable influence on his long, wandering and echo-drenched lines. But Trinidad also excels as a leader by picking simpatico (although uncredited) sidemen and material; Wayne Shorter's "Footprints" is interpreted faithfully enough to pay homage, while Trinidad's own "On This Day" bounds mischievously from Latin pulse to nearly psychedelic free-blowing. The recording is annoyingly muffled, and the guitarist often sounds like he's using a dead cat for a distortion pedal, but overall, Inventionlives up to its title and shows Trinidad to be a young jazzman of immense promise.