Bobo Stenson Trio
Cantando
ECM Records (www.ecmrecords.com)
CD ECM 2023
Pianist Bobo Stenson deserves to be a household name in jazz; but he’s not nearly as well known here in the US as he should be. Perhaps his wide stylistic reach and eclectic selection of material have something to do with it. Stenson is a pianist who’s comfortable playing ‘in’ or ‘out,’ ballads or uptempo, traditional tunes and transcriptions of obscure classical repertory.
ECM Records has long been a staunch supporter of the pianist, and his trio CDs have been highlights on the imprint since 1971. Joined by longtime collaborator bassist Anders Jormin and 29 year-old drummer Jon Fält (in his ECM debut), Stenson recorded his latest, Cantando, in the acoustically lustrous Auditorium Radio Svizzera Italiana, Lugano.
The title of the recording, taken from the Spanish word for ‘singing,’ couldn’t be apter. While Stenson’s aptitude for cantabile playing is nothing new, the material he plays here is an imaginatively conceived program from a diverse array of sources. Modern jazz tunes like Don Cherry’s “Don’s Kora Song” and Ornette Coleman’s lively “A Fixed Goal” sit quite comfortably beside a standard like “Love, I’ve Found You” – demonstrating that mod-jazz and trad jazz have more in common than conservative listeners might assume.
The trio creates a beguiling experiment with Second Viennese School composer Alban Berg’s 1907 lied “Liebesode.” Jormin’s questing arco lines and portentous bass notes from the piano are accompanied by Fält’s ominously subdued textural explorations. Stenson eventually takes up a swinging version of the song’s melody, bringing the world of Expressionism into a jazz context.
Cuban songwriter Silvio Rodriguez’s “Olivia” and Astor Piazzolla’s “Chiquilin de Bachin” extend the disc’s geographic reach; the latter is an excellent showcase for Fält. The disc’s most emotional inclusions are two version of the elegaic “Song of Ruth,” originally composed for soprano and organ, by recently deceased Czech composer Petr Eben. The trio imparts a poignancy to both versions that is moving while never verging on overt sentimentality.
“Pages” is a fourteen minute selection culled from free improvisations made by the group. It shows that, even off the cuff and in a more experimental vein, Stenson and company kept the cantando sensibility firmly in mind.
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