Trio Flux August 27, 2010

Trio Flux is the collaborative effort of three talented Portland musicians, Neil Mattson, Julio Appling, and Adam Ochshorn. The trio brings together a wide array of musical moods and textures, stretching the bounds of the traditional guitar-bass-drums jazz trio. Trio Flux, as the name suggests, adeptly moves through its funky grooves, its dark and distorted rock gestures, to its twangy free-jazz improvisations with a focus on musical dialogue between the three. The band strives to have a unique sound but doesn’t deny its influences. Guitarist Neil Mattson’s compositions betray his listening habits, Ornette Coleman, Bill Frisell, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Haden, and Pat Metheny, to name a few.

Neil Mattson’s early musical studies were in piano and trumpet, but by the age of thirteen he had abandoned both to devote his attention to guitar. Mattson is an accomplished jazz guitarist, composer/arranger, and teacher with more than a decade of private teaching experience. Neil Mattson is a 2004 Summa Cum Laude Jazz Studies graduate of Wayne State University. He was also the recipient of the Carl & Elinor Thom Harmony House Scholarship in 2002-2003 and the Joe Fava Scholarship in 2003-2004. Mattson was nominated and elected into the Pi Kappa Lambda Honorary Music Fraternity in May 2003. Mattson’s professional associations have included stints with Marcus Belgrave’s Louis Armstrong Tribute Band, the Dave Bennet Group, the Detroit Swingtet, and the Hot Club of Detroit. He has been a featured performer at the Detroit Django Reinhardt Festival, the Michigan Jazz Festival, and the Ford Detroit International Jazz Festival. He currently performs with many groups in Portland, Oregon including Trio Flux, the Matthew Gailey Band, the BOS Big Band, and Zenda & The Dudes.

Born in Bakersfield, California and raised in Tacoma, Washington, Julio Appling has been involved with music as long as he can remember. Julio received his bachelors’ degree in music from the University of Redlands and his masters’ degree in Musicology from Bowling Green State University and he has taught courses at BGSU Firelands, Tiffin University, and Clark College. He serves as the primary bassist for The Student Loan, a Portland-based jamgrass group who has taken their alt-folk stylings to national and international stages. Julio regularly makes appearances with a variety of Northwest artists including poet Christopher Luna, the jazz quartet Someday Syndrome led by Mike Prigodich, Trio Flux led by guitarist Neil Mattson, and Portland songwriters Mya Elaine, Adam Sweeney, Tristan Ellingsworth, and Sabrina Fountain.

Adam Ochshorn grew up the youngest of three boys in a household of musicians. He began playing drums at the age of 10 after starting his musical study in classical piano five years previously. He continued both dedications for five more years before deciding to concentrate more fully on percussion and especially jazz drumming. Adam attended Purchase College in NYC where he continued his studies in music and jazz performance studying under Adam Nussbaum and Richie Morales. Since then he has toured heavily on the East Coast in an original jazz/fusion group, recording two albums and playing 400+ shows in several years, before moving to Portland to continue his musical efforts. He continues to teach, write, arrange, and perform original music in the Portland area.