Carlos Niño and Nate Mercereau share five favorites with us in celebration of their upcoming release on Blue Note Records.

Supergroups are a common happening across jazz history. Virtuosic musicians find common ground through their shared influences while exploring the unknown together through boundless improvisation. To mention just a few: Last Exit, featuring guitarist Sonny Sharrock, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, and bassist Bill Laswell; V.S.O.P. with Herbie Hancock (piano, keyboards, synthesizers, and vocals), Wayne Shorter (saxophones), Ron Carter (bass), Tony Williams (drums), and Freddie Hubbard (trumpet and flugelhorn); Sun Ra All Stars featuring Don Cherry, Lester Bowie, Archie Shepp, Richard Davis, Philly Jo Jones, and Famoudou Don Moye.

Blue Note’s Openness Trio is the latest LA-based group to follow in the tradition of masters coming together to create something new… Comprised of guitarist and producer Nate Mercereau, saxophonist Josh Johnson, and percussionist Carlos Niño (the trio’s combined credits include André 3000, Meshell Ndegeocello, Kamasi Washington, Shabaka, Jeff Parker, Makaya McCraven, and much more), Openness Trio brings together free-form improvisation, spiritual jazz, new age, and ambient music to deliver a contemporary West Coast jazz sound to the iconic Blue Note Records that feels deeply connected to the intimate settings in Los Angeles and Ventura County where the album was recorded.

The locations: outdoors in the hills of Ojai with a view of the Topatopa Mountains, an intimate living room setting in Elysian Park, in an Oak Tree Cathedral at the Churchill Orchard in Ojai, a Garden of Electronics in the courtyard of an Echo Park home, and a recording session under a pepper tree at Elsewhere in Topanga Canyon. Listen to lead single “Hawk Wind,” which patiently expounds from a low guitar drone into washes of synthesizers, looping saxophone motifs, and celestial percussion. If we were to guess, this one captures the free and open atmosphere of the Topatopa Mountains in Ventura County.

Openness Trio will be released on Blue Note Records on July 11. Pre-order available here.

In celebration of the release, Carlos and Nate each shared 5 selects with us including favorites from Leaving Records’ Staying compilation, the late great Ariel Kalma, Aphex Twin, cult favorite guitarist Arthur Rhames, and much more including writeups from each artist!

Duval Timothy – stock

Carlos: “I instantly pre-order/save/download any and all of Duval’s Music upon announcement . . . When the whole album sequence became available, it was this piece that I got beautifully stuck on for a while. Played on repeat numerous times, and writing about it now makes me want to turn it on again . . .”

Qur’an Shaheed – Dreams

Carlos: “Super diverse creative, raw, deeply internal and also interpersonal album that leads with this piece . . . I was drawn to it immediately and think about its poetic vision, textures, layers . . .”

V.C.R – “Charlene’s Mantra”

Carlos: V is an incredible, thoughtful Soulful, Love-full Artist, Writer, Composer, and Producer from Memphis, now based in Los Angeles . . . This is a previously unreleased gem that I am so stoked to have on Vinyl now too . . .

André 3000 (feat. Carlos Niño, Alex Cline, and Pablo Calogero) – “This is Where my room used to be.”

Carlos: “We made this one in a unique configuration, played in Groove Masters Studio as a Quartet . . . Was always looking forward to when and where we would release it. Felt perfect to offer it to this vital and meaningful collective community project.”

Purchase here: https://staying.bandcamp.com/album/staying-leaving-records-aid-to-artists-impacted-by-the-los-angeles-wildfires

Ariel Kalma – Kalimba Sax 92

Carlos: “Infinite/Eternal LOVE to the Big, (sweet, stern, particular, generous, humorous) Homie Ariel! Thank You for your ultra prolific, playful, experimental, energy flows . . . Since 2020 you put so, so, so many albums up on your Bandcamp and Digital Streaming . . . This funky treasure remains a major stand out for me . . .”

Aphex Twin – T13 Quadraverbia N+3 [London 03.06.17]

Carlos: “Bonus! Yo! Aphex is never to be slepped on. In any, almost every, drop, dump, official . . . there is something special. You heard this one? (Fire Emoji!) All Respect! Never overrated . . . Thanks for having me.”

Yes – Awaken

Nate: “Yes is very special to me, not just musically but lyrically and overall energetically … the name YES, the transcendent lyrics from Jon Anderson. I’m very into progressive music of all types, but the era of Yes from 1971 – 1977 is something else. ‘Seasons will pass you by … ‘”

Arthur Rhames – “arthur rhames prospect park bkln too..”

Nate: “I found out about Arthur Rhames from a list of guitarists Vernon Reid posted online. There is a bootleg concert recording of Arthur Rhames with his group Eternity that I come back to often. These few live recordings of them playing at Prospect Park are so ripping, it’s the type of music that encourages imagination of other possible music, like it’s stoking the fire.”

Frank Zappa – It Must Be A Camel (1987 remix)

Nate: “This is the first Zappa album I heard when I was about 15. It’s a remixed version of the 1969 album, with additional percussion and other instrumental overdubs. I didn’t know about the overdubs when I first heard it, but noticed how different some of the instrumentation sounded compared to other parts of the recording. This version of the album first opened me up to the idea that you can add to live or group recordings with overdubs / enhancements to make some unique moments happen — highlighting and magnifying, and using live recordings as material for further creativity.”

André 3000 – Moving Day

Nate: “One of my favorite things about the way André shares music is that it’s a reminder that anything is possible. This is life. This is our lives. There are so many things to look into and enjoy. Exploration, Discovery, Enthusiasm, Curiosity …”

Fire-Toolz – “Gnosis .•o°Ozing”

Nate: “I was introduced to Fire-Toolz by Justin Brown during a recording session we had together recently — the first song on the album “Gnosis .•o°Ozing”, I listened to a few times before moving on through the rest of the album. I felt total freedom listening to this music — more things in the world to suggest infinite possibility, not only of sound, but of everything”