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Danielsson / Nesset / Lund - Sun Blowing (2016) ACT MUSIC

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Danielsson / Nesset / Lund - Sun Blowing (2016)

By John Fordham / The Guardian

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

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Morten Haxholm Quartet - Viridian (2015)

Morten Haxholm: bass

Lage Lund: guitar

William Larsson: piano

Morten Lund: drums

Eldritch

CNTDWN

Stella by Starlight

Frantic

Birthday Waltz

Umber

Gloria

Along Came Betty

BY PETER BACON / thejazzbreakfast

Morton Haxholm is a Danish double bass player. One of these albums was recorded in Copenhagen and the other in Brooklyn; both were released on 29 May 2015.

For Haxholm it’s his third Quartet album, though each has had a different personnel. On Viridian he has guitarist Lage Lund, drummer Morten Lund and pianist William Larsson. It’s a beautifully balanced band so although Lage Lund is the obvious star name – Haxholm first heard him on a trip to New York back in 2012 and has having him in his band ever since – the other three are equally impressive.

Most of the material is the leader’s with two standards – Stella By Starlight and Along Came Betty – included because Haxholm loves Lage’s playing on well-known tunes, and a particularly tricky Larsson piece called Cntdwn (a highly-adapted arrangement of Coltrane’s Countdown).

The moods vary but the playing is uniformly impeccable. Haxholm said he wanted to give this music a more European feel, and that’s inevitable I suppose with all the players being Scandinavian, but also retain a New York inspiration which is important to him and was more obvious on his first two quartet discs. I think he’s achieved that, though in a blind listening test I might have identified it as an American unit.

Try Birthday Waltz for a satisfying and representative morsel of the whole. Read more.

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