Review by Thom Jurek Trinity is the second installment of Joe McPhee's early work that's been re-released in Atavistic's wonderful Unheard Music series of extremely worthy yet rarely noted music originally recorded on LP. The first was the widely acclaimed Nation Time. This trio date from 1971 follows that recording chronologically. After Nation Time, McPhee's bassist Tyrone Crabb left the band to pursue "political ambitions," and McPhee was frustrated in his attempt to find a replacement. He hung it up. Good thing. Trinity, originally on the CjR label, is a powerful dose of outer space jazz, blues, and avant soul from a master of virtually any instrument with a bell. It was recorded in the parish hall of a Catholic Church. (McPhee's first album, Underground Railroad, was recorded in a monastery.) It is also worthy to note that, at nearly an hour of playing time, the original recordings had to be "groove-crammed" to make them fit on a single vinyl LP without the needle jumping out of the grooves. In the expanded CD format, the album is heard for the first time with its original sound from the master tapes. There are only three tracks on the album, the first of which is the spatially expansive "Ionization." McPhee first picks up a trumpet and then immediately goes to his tenor, accompanied only by drummer Harold Smith. While at first this sounds like a duet in the manner of Coltrane's Interstellar Space with Rashied Ali, it quickly moves into a sonic researching of the param