Brent and bassist Shawn Conley first played together in 2010 in Brent's short-lived project The Joe Brent Quartet, which also featured clarinetist Hideaki Aomori and guitarist Nadav Lev. However, when Brent's commitments to
Regina Spektor's touring band and his teaching responsibilities at
Mannes College spread his time too thin, he put the quartet project on hold. In 2012, he started performing as a duo with Caswell, and after releasing
Joe Brent & Sara Caswell EP together in 2013, they decided to add a bass player and Brent called on Conley once again, renaming the new ensemble after the
Billy Collins poem of the same name. After making the finals of the 2014
Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, they were signed to
Sunnyside Records and released their debut album,
Perfectest Herald in October, 2015. The recording includes percussionist Ben Wittman, but live performances generally feature either the trio alone, or guest musicians such as
Emily Hope Price or
Ike Sturm. In 2016, after adding Ryan, they were the 1st Prize winners of the inaugural 21CM Launch: Emerging Artists competition. Brent is originally from
Queens, New York, but spent much of his childhood in Tampa, Florida. Caswell is from
Bloomington, Indiana, while Ryan hails from Denver, Colorado. Brent was formerly a member of
Regina Spektor's band, is an active classical soloist, and with Caswell he occasionally performs with
Kishi Bashi. Caswell is also a member of
Esperanza Spalding's Chamber Music Society and
David Krakauer's The Big Picture. Ryan performs with
newgrass ensemble The Freewheel Trio, Canadian folk musician
Kaia Kater, and has been a member of
OneBeat. The trio's music, all of which is composed or arranged by Brent, combines elements of
improvised musical forms with classical
chamber music and Brent's own
indie rock influences. The four movement piece entitled
Perfectest Herald which gives the album its name and acts as its centerpiece contains elements of
rock,
new music,
Middle Eastern music,
jazz,
rhythm and blues, and traditional
classical music, most notably in the 2nd movement,
listening to the Elliott Smith discography in reverse order, in which a single musical subject passes through all of the aforementioned genres and a
fugue before recapitulating. Budd Kopmann of
All About Jazz described the music for the 'Perfectest Herald' suite as "...among the most life affirming one will ever hear... Regardless of which emotional depths Brent drew on to compose these pieces, this highly emotive music touches and communicates the essence of what it means to be an alive, feeling human being." ==Discography==