Le trio deMichel Wintsch(Genève, Suisse), Bänz Oester (Berne, Suisse) et Gerry Hemingway, (New Jersey, US),
commence à tourner et enregistrer en 1998.

Chris Parker, de BBC Music, a écrit : “...les compositions sont tout à fait absorbantes, excitantes, imprévisibles ; pièces
habilement structurées, révélées pas les interprétations du trio, d’une souplesse et d’une délicatesse extraordinaire, et
pourtant d'une puissance scrupuleusement contrôlée” et Andy Hamilton de Jazz Review : « ...le résultat et toujours intri-
gant, souvent irrésistible, démontrant une intelligence vive de la composition... »

Atravers les sensibilités et le talent de chacun de ses membres, le trio a trouvé originalité, cohésion et ouverture. Le
bonheur -et l’exigence- de l’écoute et la volonté d’arpenter les territoires inexplorés de l’improvisation ouverte produit un
univers inhabituel, et scelle un accord tacite : la création collective est plus grande que les contributions individuelles.
Le WHO trio a développé ce qui souvent reste énigmatique en musique : un son de groupe. Son caractérisé entre autres
par une transparence et un espace permettant à l’auditeur de partager le détail le plus délicat et le plus subtil, ou par
une sensibilité rythmique offrant aisance, tension, et surprise à leur puissante interaction musicale.

A travers chaque projet, de nouvelles qualités enrichissent le répertoire expressif du trio. Par exemple, Michel introduit
des chansons françaises au programme, approfondissant les résonances émotionnelles de leur musique. Ou encore,
comme sur «Sharing The Thirst», le trio développe son amour des groove puissants de toutes sortes. Il n’est pas
inhabituel d’entendre cette formation instrumentale traditionnelle balancer comme Massive Attack, tourner comme Fela,
swinger comme Count Basie.

Les trois musiciens ont un jeux très physique, et bien que les enregistrements donnent une bonne idée de leur musique,
il y a beaucoup plus à déguster ce trio en concert. Les mots sont impuissants à rendre le plaisir que ce trio a apporté et
continue d’apporter à son public.

Certainly it is a jazz record, rife with beautifully studied compositions and carefully articulated improvisations; as such, it is a nocturnal, silky, wonderfully wrought piece of understated mastery. ......

….when it's the Who Trio, anything and everything is possible. Awesome  Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

The trio repeatedly stretched the conventions of the modern jazz piano format to the brink of disfigurement, without crossing over into pat deconstructivist gestures. Each player exerted a determined independence in developing materials; but as in the case of Paul Bley's classic trios, there is a spaciousness immediately asserted that each player's mobility is easily incorporated into the work.

All three musicians have excellent skills: Wintsch can unleash withering unison lines that suddenly splay to create dizzying contrapuntal mazes: Oester has a deft sense of leading with a big sound and letting phrases build in its wake; and Hemingway has a seemingly bottomless reservoir of ways to shape the pulse on a second by second basis. WHO Trio provides a truly open forum for them to roam.

Bill Shoemaker 2002

With beautiful melody and intricate structure, the WHO trio's album Open Songs displays the strong compositional background of the musicians. Gentle improvisations are interwoven, and there is strength and unity in the sound. Beyond the traditional method of trading solos, there's a profound communication and feeling of solidity between the three players. Although entitled Open Songs, they are not so much airy as they are tight, each sonic element connected like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. by Paula Fayerman

For the most part, Michael Wintsch’s compositions - plus a couple from drummer Gerry Hemingway - are wholly absorbing, rousingly unpredictable, cleverly structured pieces that elicit trio performances of extraordinary subtlety and delicacy yet scrupulously controlled power.

Chris Parker, BBC Music

This is swing with a ring, able to pause way out on a limb before hitting a collapsable brick wall straight back into the composition. Mixing metaphors is easy in these surroundings.

Steve Day

Identity is persuasive, distinctive and at times striking as these musicians fuse their individual talents from a compositional and technical perspective which adds a nice touch of diversity along with a few surprises here and there. Throughout, the band state their collective identities in outward and for the most part, glistening fashion while providing the listener with captivating themes along with zealous soloing and a compelling sense of unity. A first class effort and thoroughly modernistic approach to the beloved piano trio format! Recommended...........* * * * By Glenn Astarita

WHO- Michel Wintsch/Bänz Oester/Gerry Hemingway-The Current Underneath
Leo Records LR 391

The third release "The Current Underneath" by the trio features all-star trombonist Ray Anderson, performing on the final cut titled, “Jlrai.” Ultimately, the group uses space as an added instrument. But don’t let that fool you. The musicians do inject an abundance of pumping grooves, fiercely enacted swing motifs and finger-snapping rhythms into the grand scheme of things. Drummer Gerry Hemingway and bassist Banz Oester generate matters into overdrive on occasion, while pianist Michel Wintsch once again surfaces as an articulate improviser. The pianist often counterbalances a sequence of micro-themes with his left hand voicings amid swirling countercurrents and odd-metered pulses. They explore a myriad of disparate angles. Hence, the live element creates an uncanny sense of the visual, whereas the trio remains focused, yet loose. The music is characterized by a continuous and asymmetrically designed flow, while Wintsch creates a few well-placed gaps here and there. At times, fascinating and highly entertaining, the trio simply distinguishes itself in rather pronounced fashion throughout this absorbing affair. (Vigorously recommended…) Glenn Astarita Jazzreview.com

and from All Music Guide

This sophomore effort by the Who Trio -- pianist Michel Wintsch with drummer Gerry Hemingway and bassist Bänz Oester -- is a rambling, startling exercise in textures, layered dynamics, and process. Certainly it is a jazz record, rife with beautifully studied compositions and carefully articulated improvisations; as such, it is a nocturnal, silky, wonderfully wrought piece of understated mastery. The opener, "Quartier Lointain," a collective improvisation, offers a bird's-eye view of the intimacy of these proceedings. Wintsch 's pianism shimmers around two different melodic ideas as Hemingway double-times his way into near silence, underlining only the briefest of phrases. Oester falls in on separate measures, collating his way through the harmonics. Eventually, the tension increases just enough to bring the band together in a taut percussive exchange before Wintsch brings back his skeletal melody to break it. It's stunning. On Wintsch 's "Swantra," bopped-up piano blues and swing are offered up as ghost figures for a new kind of knotty interchange as both Oester and Hemingway syncopate the already syncopated and turn harmonics around on one another in the process. The reading of "Jerusalem" here is one of the most elegant, emotionally beautiful, and challenging ever recorded. Its deep lyricism reflects the traditionally based folk melody the tune is composed on as a jazz construct, and offers the sheerest shade of the blues as an anchor to its exoticism. And so it goes -- until the last track as Ray Anderson 's trombone is added to the mix. Oester's bowed bass and Hemingway 's whispering cymbals introduce the tune. "J'Irai" seems to come from the desert itself. Its slowly unfolding melody and mode reflect the spirits of ancient musics and film noir jazz before becoming a tough, slightly out post-bop swing fest. It is arresting, deep, mysterious, and profound in its subtlety. This is a provocative way to end a recording where so much has already been introduced, but when it's the Who Trio, anything and everything is possible. Awesome. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

From All About Jazz
by Ty Cumbie

View review here

"Open Songs" on Altrisuoni Records released in the spring of 2002 and features a number of the trio's interpretations of French chanssons.

WHO- Michel Wintsch/Bänz Oester/Gerry Hemingway-Open Songs
Altrisuoni 108

Géraldine Martin-Jazzbreak.com

The trio Wintsch / Hemingway / Oester proposes us a very creative music with its new album.

Original compositions are along side interpretations of songs from, among others, Gilbert Bécaud and Jacques Brel. With a lot of subtlety, these songs (these "Open Songs") actually open and become the crucible of a captivating re-invention.

The surprising interpretation of the "Plat Pays" really gives us the feeling to go across this scenery described by Brel. The sounds restitute the wide area and the magic becomes possible.

Open Songs resounds an astonishing beauty, sometimes on the verge of silence. We perceive behind these notes a voice, both strange and familiar, and a contained emotion which tears us one moment and exhilarates us the next.

Géraldine Martin ::june 24 2002 Jazzbreak.com

Open Songs-Altrisuoni 108 Jason Bivins, Cadence

Michel Wintsch is one of the many players on the European scene who enjoys far less exposure than the rightly should. A talented pianist who straddles genres - from chamber music to free improvisation to slinky grooves or films music - in less a channel-surfing than a synthetic fashion, he's developed his own voice with this trio for several years now. His recordings are often marked more by their sense of narrative developement   than their technical bravado (he's got technique, don't worry ; he just knows when and when not to use it for the sake of the music). It helps to have   such a sympathetic   partners in these endavors. Oester's bass playing shares many of the virtues of Hemingway's drumming : each   is able to play with equal ease in idiomatic and non-idiomatic situations, providing either a highly creative texture   or a very specific pulse track.

From the opening themes on this recording, it is evident that the group is exploring repetition and minimalism more than on some earlier recordings. The dedication to Tarkovski is, if anyone needed a pointer, a fair indication of Wintsch's sensibilities as improviser : he tends toward the dramatic, if not always the cinematic. The trio brings a great deal of inventiveness to the relatively simple structure of « Offret » (Oester's pizzicato meshes particularly well with Wintsch's darting play). Looking at the basic   elements of the tune from different angles seems to be the order of the day. The drama is not only internal to each composition/improvisation, but is also used to structure the album as a whole. « Le plat pays » is a somber, droning piece where Wintsch's ruminations are offset against whisking percussion and delicate arco. This, along with « Ne me quittes pas » is a Jacques Brel tune - an interesting reference to set alongside Wintsch's oftnoted classical proclivities. He sounds as if he's having a ball playing someone else's tunes, as he also does on Angel Cabral's « La foule » with is very elaborate counterlines. But to me, the finest piece here, filled with thorny statements,   rhythmic   knots, and open gestures as well - and the hour « Et maintenant ». This last piece returns to the quasi-minimalist feel, but with a slightly more anthemic   quality. As the piece progresses, Hemingway and Oester start to swing and groovr like mad, pushing Wintsch to some of his most expressive playing. While not every piece suceeds (« Isablue » for example, has a nice ambience but doesn't really go anywhere, while « 2 pm » feels like little more than a punctuation mark), this fine piano trio is to be commended for going beyond the usual parameters.

"Identity" on Leo Records was the trio's debut cd.

Identity is yet another fine piano trio recording brought to us by "Leo Records" featuring the expertise of pianist Michel Wintsch, bassist Ban Oester and all-world drummer-composer Gerry Hemingway. Here each musician contributes compositions that run the gamut from being tightly integrated or classically tinged such as Wintsch' "Choucas" and "Anne-Marie S" along with spotty doses of congenial swing motifs and gleaming tonal contrasts all performed via a well-mannered and orderly approach. On Hemingway's composition "NT", Wintsch displays a massive yet eloquently stated percussive attack behind the keys along with a lightning quick right hand. The Trio also explore various themes via sharp, brilliantly executed improvisation on pieces such as "Link" where Hemingway's sweeping brush-work sets an unusual pattern followed by Wintsch' circular passages. "Driving Home" is a moderate swing in the classic piano trio mold as Wintsch' employs soulful passages that may fit somewhere in between Junior Mance and Monk as Oester and Hemingway stretch out with poignant well-executed solos.

  Identity is persuasive, distinctive and at times striking as these musicians fuse their individual talents from a compositional and technical perspective which adds a nice touch of diversity along with a few surprises here and there. Throughout, the band state their collective identities in outward and for the most part, glistening fashion while providing the listener with captivating themes along with zealous soloing and a compelling sense of unity. A first class effort and thoroughly modernistic approach to the beloved piano trio format! Recommended...........* * * * Glenn Astarita