CD ECM Records Tord Gustavsen Trio: Changing Places

2003

Tord Gustavsen - pian
Harald Johnsen - contrabas
Jarle Vespestad - tobe

Introducing a new piano trio from Norway. Tord Gustavsen’s young group, already making waves in the Far North – where “Changing Places” has soared into the pop charts – is telling new stories within the framework of the jazz tradition. This is music that sings, at once gentle and robust. The songs Gustavsen writes sound like standards-in-the-making: lyrical, immediately memorable songs, songs of an appealing freshness, yet sophisticated in their involvement with the melodic line. And the trio improvises, with flair and originality, inside their structures.



Jazz Review, Editor’s Choice
Jazzman, Choc du mois
Stereoplay, CD des Monats
Piano magazine, Coup de cœur
Les Inrockuptibles, Ecouté et approuvé

Changing Places is an unusual achievement … Technical display is at a premium, and the compositions, all by the leader, are beguiling simple and intensely melodic. Gustavsen avoids flourishes of emotion, and while it’s brave to begin an album at the funereal pace of “Deep As Love”, it’s braver still to continue that way. But this is a tempo which allows real improvisation, as Lee Konitz would put it. “At A Glance” is unusual here in following the customary arch pattern of increased intensity dying away at the end; “IGN” is mid-uptempo, but all other tracks are slow or slow-medium. “Turning Point” in particular is hauntingly beautiful. Bassist Harald Johnsen and drummer Jarle Vespestad, who’s worked with Norwegian electro-improv band Supersilent and with Farmer’s Market, also help to keep things simple – Vespestad in particular is astonishingly restrained. Changing Places is a distinctive achievement and marks the emergence of a potentially major talent.
Andy Hamilton, Jazz Review