Bobo Stenson Trio - Sphere (2023) CD-Rip

Tracklist:

01. You Shall Plant a Tree (Norgard) - 4:37
02. Unquestioned Answer - Charles Ives In Memoriam (Jormin) - 6:00
03. Spring (Back) - 4:08
04. Kingdom of Coldness (Jormin) - 7:38
05. Communion Psalm (Back) - 5:37
06. The Red Flower (Woo) - 6:17
07. Ky and Beautiful Madame Ky (Janson) - 4:51
08. Valsette, Op.40/1 (Sibelius) - 5:08
09. You Shall Plant a Tree (Var.) (Norgard) - 4:02

Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson should by all accounts be the same ECM label star as his Norwegian colleagues guitarist Terje Rüpdal and saxophonist Jan Garbarek. But he is less known, less loved by the general public. There are understandable reasons for this. First of all, because for a significant part of his career Stenson worked not as a leader, but as a sideman. In the second, because his own creative handwriting finally took shape quite late. Nevertheless, "Spheres", the new album of his trio with bassist Andres Jormin and drummer Jon Felt, is a very good argument in favor of Stenson's dedication to the pantheon of stars of both ECM in particular and modern jazz in general.
First the prehistory. Stenson is a student of the German—Swedish composer Werner Wolf Glazer, who, in turn, was a student of Paul Hindemith, the most famous German modernist. Fifteen years of studying with Glazer directly influenced the creative approach of Stenson, whose music has always been between academic composition and jazz. However, it was jazz that the pianist was much more interested in in his youth. Since the first half of the 60s, he accompanied visiting American jazz stars on tour in Stockholm. Among those with whom Stenson performed in those years were Sonny Rollins, Don Cherry, Stan Getz, George Russell.
In 1971, ECM released the first album of the Bobo Stenson trio "Underwear", featuring drums by Jon Christensen and bass by Arlid Anderson, two pillars of the label's classic sound. With their participation, Stenson and Jan Garbarek a few years later recorded two records of the so—called Jan Garbarek - Bobo Stenson Quartet, in which both were formally co-leaders. One of these records, "Witchi-Tai-To", critics almost unanimously include among the most important for ECM of that time. However, Stenson's cooperation with Manfred Eicher's company stopped there — and for a long time. For most of the 70s and 80s, Stenson was published on other labels and played with musicians not from the ECM band, mainly working within the local framework of the Swedish jazz and fusion scene.
Stenson returned to ECM in 1990, but as a sideman. Together with the same Jon Christensen and bassist Palle Danielsson, he formed the Charles Lloyd band on the record "Fish Out of Water", which turned out to be a great comeback of this wonderful American saxophonist. In general, we can say that with "Fish Out of Water" a new phase of Lloyd's creativity began, who, as a composer, set a course for deep and literally meditative music, where American jazz and the lessons of the European post-war academic avant-garde are equally well heard. Stenson's piano, which played on Lloyd's next four ECM records and toured extensively with the saxophonist for most of the 90s, was an essential element of this smooth and sonorous music. If the pianist needed to emphasize the lyricism of Lloyd's melodies, he skillfully ornamented them with bright dotted chords; if Stenson needed to conceive or continue the melody himself, then he turned on his jazz experience to the fullest, forcing the unhurried music to swing a little. Especially the skill of the Swede is heard on the album "Canto", specifically in the opening 16—minute piece "Tales of Rumi", one of the absolute masterpieces in Lloyd's extensive discography.
Working with Lloyd and participating in recordings by Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko of the 90s, Bobo Stenson found time to revive his own trio. "Reflections", his second album on ECM, was released in 1996. Jon Christensen played drums again, Andres Jormin played bass, with whom Stenson played together on many records of the same Lloyd and who later became a long—term musical partner of the pianist. Moreover, it was Jormin who eventually became the main composer and arranger of the Bobo Stenson trio, which managed to record three more records with Jon Christensen behind the drums. On the album "Goodbye", released in 2005, Christensen was replaced by the giant of jazz music Paul Motion, who does not need an introduction (by the way, on this record the trio performed their version of Vladimir Vysotsky's "Song of the Earth"; Jormin as an arranger generally tends to bards, his favorite is Cuban Silvio Rodriguez, whose things are bassist performed both solo and with Stenson). Finally, Jon Felt — a musician born in 1979, he is much younger than Stenson and Jormin — joined the trio in 2007 on the album "Cantando". It was with him that the sound of the ensemble was finally formed.
The current album "Sphere" is a logical and logical continuation of all the records of the trio of Bobo Stenson in this composition, including the previous "Indicum" (2012) and "Contra la indecisión" (2018). Together with Felt, the music of this group has become much more abstract, more sustained in terms of drama, rarely reaching slightly pathetic intonations that were heard on the trio's previous releases. I'm sorry for the stereotype, but listening to all four albums that Stenson, Jormin and Felt recorded together, it's impossible to get rid of the feeling that Swedish musicians have completely accepted their Nordic character in themselves.
Actually, "Sphere" is probably their most "Nordic" record. Firstly, most of the music on the CD is arranged by composers from the Nordic countries: Per Nergor, Sven—Erik Beck, Alfred Janson and Jan Sibelius. Secondly, the album as a whole is designed in such a way that the cover photo is really the best way to describe it: a blow of sunlight breaking through the clouds in the middle of the swirling North sea.
"Sphere" actually begins with a suite, with three of the most abstract compositions on the disc, together at the first listening they can seem not even separate compositions, but one stream of free improvisation. On the fourth track, "Kingdom of Coldness" by Jormin, the Stenson trio moves on to a jazz sound, which persists throughout the next four compositions. This is melodic, slow and full of space music, in which all three musicians take on equal responsibility. The last two compositions are Op. Sibelius' 40/1 and the reprise of Nergor's song "You Shall Plant a Tree", which also opens the album, is a return back to abstraction. It's like diving from the flat surface of a rocky ledge into wild and deep waters.
With all the heterogeneity of the material and all the heterogeneity of approaches to it, the trio of Bobo Stenson on "Sphere" comes out quite a looped and very coherent statement. It can be assumed that the three parts of the album are an existential metaphor: birth, the course of life and its finale, followed by rebirth. Or a journey — from twilight to light and back. But here's the thing: there can be a million such interpretations, and any attentive listener is able to offer his own. The music of "Sphere" is, like all of Stenson's music, an absolute thing, devoid of a program, asking questions, not answering them. Her mystery has its own charm. This is not a dry "academism" and not a confused "postbop", not even something "in between", but a thing in itself, a pattern of an unknown mystery. To solve it for yourself, it takes several careful listening to the disc from beginning to end. In this case, it will not be just a figure of speech to say that each of these auditions will open up new facets, new meanings, new horizons. Horizons full of sunlight breaking through the gloom of clouds.