VA - Romantic Freedom - Blue in Green (2021)

ACT is a label with a clear sense of its own identity, values and mission, and these virtues find strong expression in this new compilation. ACT has been a major force since 1992 in bringing to the fore European jazz which transcends the old genre boundaries, and has played a major part in helping this music to become far better known in its many and varied forms. This is in fact the second compilation album from the label to bear the motto “Romantic Freedom”. Back in 2006, fourteen years after the label was founded, the first album with this title focused on performances by solo pianists, a particularly strong area for ACT. Now, another fourteen years on, "Romantic Freedom - Blue in Green" brings the story and the message up to date - and does so in several fascinating ways.

The ACT family continues to grow with the addition of fascinating artists from all over Europe, so it is fitting that David Helbock, a pianist who has only recently risen to prominence beyond his native Austria, and whose association with ACT started in 2016, should be given the honour of starting the album with his Random Control Trio in a moodily, atmospheric version of the modal Miles Davis/Bill Evans ballad “Blue in Green”. Another pianist who has only recently made his album is Carsten Dahl from Denmark. Dahl's “Sailing with no Wind” has calm, balance and great beauty. And for contrast there is the catchy, rock-inspired immediacy of the Stockholm-based Jacob Karlzon Trio in “Bubbles”.

The nurturing of fruitful dialogue across national borders and styles of music is a real strength at ACT, and is a key feature of "Romantic Freedom - Blue in Green". As Chris Pearson of The Times of London reflected in early 2020: “Since 1992 Act, the German label, has been building its own European union of musicians, fostering a freedom of movement between nationalities and genres.” It is worth noting that, whereas almost half of the pianists on the 2006 album were from North America, all the musicians apart from three on the new album were born in Europe.

A band which epitomizes civilized conversation across borders, indeed has it at its very core is Mare Nostrum, the trio of Sardinian trumpeter Paolo Fresu, French accordionist Richard Galliano und Swedish pianist Jan Lundgren. They play Michel Legrand’s “The Windmills of Your Mind” . Fresu’s appealing and warm flugelhorn sound is to also be heard irresistibly on Komeda’s “Sleep Safe and Warm” (also known as “Rosemary’s Lullaby”) in duo with Lars Danielsson. We also hear the very different heritages of Polish violinist Adam Bałdych and French/Israeli pianist Yaron Herman as the pair create and then release tension in “Riverendings”, the first of two tracks on this album featuring a violin.

Musicians from Europe walk, quite literally, in the footsteps of the great classical composers. The young German pianist Johanna Summer, the youngest musician on this album and rapidly becoming a star of the label was born in Saxony very near Zwickau, the birthplace of Robert Schumann’s. She is heard here in her affecting “instant composing” version of Schumann’s “Of Foreign Lands And People” from “Scenes of Childhood”. David Helbock lived for some years in Vienna, and in “Beethoven #7, 2nd Movement”, we hear the Austrian in a delicate and thoughtful version on prepared piano. Norwegians pianist Bugge Wesseltoft and violinist Henning Kragerrud have a deep feeling for the melodic beauty of their compatriot Grieg’s “Våren” (Last Spring).

ACT is home for pianists with a central role in European jazz in recent decades, such as Michael Wollny, Joachim Kühn, Leszek Możdżer. All three (and also Bugge Wesseltoft) were represented on the 2006 and the listener can reflect on the journey they have travelled over the decades with a label that above all help to ensure that their reputations can build beyond their home countries. Michael Wollny’s “Little Person”, a cover of Jon Brion’s song from the film “Synecdoche, New York.” is quietly reflective with a gentle pulse and a deliciously open ending. We also hear Wollny on prepared piano accompanying another core member of the ACT artist family, Nils Landgren on both vocals and trombone), in Sting’s “Fragile”. We have the decisively carefree and rocky side of Joachim Kühn’s New Trio in “Sleep on it”. On this compilation we go back to the beginning and hear the very first track from “Pasodoble” Leszek_Możdżer’s 2007 debut on ACT: “Praying” in a duo with Lars Danielsson.

Another massively influential figure in European jazz, and until his untimely death in 2008 a core member of the ACT label family was the late Esbjörn Svensson. He was also on the 2006 album. We hear an e.s.t. track which has become a classic, “Believe Beleft Below”, and also a homage to the Swedish visionary from another pianist who has revealed many sides of his character and his story on the ACT label, the Finn Iiro Rantala, who plays his heartfelt tribute “Tears For Esbjörn”.

If we now know what European jazz is, that is at least in part because ACT has shaped an important part of its story. "Romantic Freedom - Blue in Green" shows how appealing, how approachable and how universal European jazz at its best can be.