present
There’s a lot of inviting improv space in the harmonically free trio format of saxophone, bass and drums, but there’s also nowhere to hide. Only the most resourceful players have risked it (saxophonists Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, John Surman and latterly Mark Turner in the Fly trio have been frontrunners), but the trio of Norwegian saxist Marius Neset and Swedish bassist and drummer Lars Danielsson and Morten Lund joins the best. Formed out of an accidental meeting on a train in 2012, it’s another triumph for the prolific Neset, who often plays in structured settings but cuts enthrallingly loose here. He suggests both Rollins and Michael Brecker on the sinewy Little Jump. Danielsson and Lund open the lamenting Coltranesque title track with enthralling detail.
There are shy soprano-sax tone-poems, memorable themes suggestive of Carla Bley and Charles Lloyd. It’s an unashamedly jazz-rooted conversation without electronics or pop hooks, but so spiritedly lyrical and dynamic that its contemporaneity is never in doubt.
1. Little Jump ( Lars Danielsson) 04:43
2. Sun Blowing ( Lars Danielsson) 04:11
3. Up North ( Morten Lund) 05:17
4. Salme ( Marius Neset) 08:58
5. olksong ( Lars Danielsson) 05:19
6. Evening Song For B ( Morten Lund) 04:23
7. Blå ( Lars Danielsson) 04:01
8. The Cost Of Living ( Don Grolnick)
Marius Neset / tenor saxophone
Lars Danielsson / bass
Morten Lund / drums
BUY THIS ALBUM
