Washington City Paper
11 Dec 09

There’s something special about the basic piano trio. The small group and spare sound is charming and intimate at its heart, but also gives the musicians room to stretch out to enormous lengths and maneuver around and within each other’s work. New York’s The Go Trio is a shining example of both a trio’s tightness and its elasticity. It plays acoustic and electric music, classic and contemporary, swing and funk. If it has any one focal point, it’s the American songbook whose definition pianist Sean Gough, bassist Gene Perla, and drummer Joshua Brown are working overtime to broaden.

Band of the Week: Go Trio
By Dave Howell
The Morning Call
7 Feb 09

The Go Trio straddles traditional and modern jazz. They play the Great American Songbook and jazz standards, but they are hard-core believers in improvisation. You can be sure that each time they play a tune, it will be different.

They may stick close to the original chords of the song, or slip far from the melody and just keep the bar-by-bar rhythm. Another night they might change the tempo. ''It's not 'free' in terms of avant-garde,'' says bassist Gene Perla. ''It's reacting and complementing each other.''

Perla was exploring his new neighborhood in September 2007 when he noticed The Cosmic Cup coffee shop of Easton's College Hill. He asked to sit in during a Wednesday night jam session that included pianist Sean Gough.

Perla, who teaches music business at Lehigh University, brought in Lehigh student Josh Brown on drums and the group began in July of last year. The name ''Go'' came from the way some people pronounce Gough's last name.

The trio bridges ages as well as styles. Gough is a music and history student at Lafayette College, applying to graduate school, while Brown has just finished a degree in mechanical engineering.

Perla, who was born in 1940, has performed and recorded with jazz artists including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Woody Herman. Last year he released ''Bill's Waltz,'' based on tracks recorded in 1986 with drummer Elvin Jones and Perla on piano. Perla wrote all the tunes (except the theme to ''Popeye the Sailor''), created the arrangements, and conducted the NDR Big Band of Hamburg, Germany. The title track was named after pianist Bill Evans.