Michael Cain, Ralph Alessi, Peter Epstein

Circa is the only ECM album by the trio of pianist Michael Cain, trumpeter Ralph Alessi and saxophonist Peter Epstein, a band with no bass and no drums. Released in 1997, it is chamber jazz in the literal sense, eleven pieces in which composed lines and improvisation are hard to tell apart. It also marked Alessi's first appearance on the label, sixteen years before his own ECM debut as a leader.

All three studied at the California Institute of the Arts, where Charlie Haden taught for more than three decades. Cain completed his MFA there in 1990, Alessi took his BFA in 1987 and his MFA in 1990, and Epstein graduated in 1992. By the time of this session Cain was known to ECM listeners from his work with Jack DeJohnette, on Dancing With Nature Spirits and Oneness. The album was recorded in August 1996 at Rainbow Studio in Oslo, with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer and Manfred Eicher as producer. Cain plays piano, Alessi trumpet and flugelhorn, Epstein soprano and tenor saxophones, and Cain also wrote the liner notes.

Most of the writing is Cain's, with Alessi contributing Social Drones and the closing Marché, and the two sharing credit for The Suchness Of Dory Philpott. Without a rhythm section the piano carries both harmony and pulse, while the two horns trade lines, double each other in unison or split into counterpoint. The pieces range from the 84-second opener Siegfried And Roy, whose title is completed later by And Their White Tigers, to the eight minutes of Marché. The title track moves between a written theme and open playing, and Top O' The Dunes, at over seven minutes, gives the trio its widest space.

Writing for AllMusic, Scott Yanow heard music "ranging from what sounds like chamber music" and noted that it is "often difficult to determine when the musicians are improvising". Reviewing the album in 2012 on ECM Reviews, Tyran Grillo traced the influence of Haden in Ped Cruc and Egg. He described the title track as changing shape "like a bubble on the wind". Grillo recommended the record to listeners of Oregon and of the ECM group Gallery. Alessi returned to ECM as a leader with Baida in 2013 and Quiver in 2016.

CD, ECM 1622, first released in 1997.