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Carrothers gigs regularly around the U.S. and in Europe, but his profile remains unjustly low, in part because he lives in a relatively out-of-the-way place. Since settling in Michigan he’s made a series of low-key records for his own Bridge Boy Music imprint, including several that wed his deep interest in history to his love for jazz–in separate collections he improvises on music associated with the Civil War and World War I.
The trio he brings to the Green Mill this Friday and Saturday appears on another Pirouet date called I Love Paris (2006); his Belgian rhythm section in this group consists of bassist Nicolas Thys (who recently released the solid but unremarkable quintet outing Virgo on the same label) and drummer Dre Pallemaerts. The album isn’t quite as spiky and dynamic as Carrothers’s best work, but the performances are hard to find fault with.