Benedikt Jahnel – piano; Antonio Miguel – double bass; Owen Howard – drums
(CD Review by Hugh C)
This truly international trio comprising Jahnel (Germany), Miguel (Spain) and Howard (Canada) have been playing together for ten years. This album, The Invariant, is so named in recognition of the continuity of their musical partnership. The music is all composed by Benedikt Jahnel. The content of this CD represents a distillation of material played in the live setting and developed there and in the studio to incorporate the dynamic responses of his trio partners.
There are eight tracks yielding in total 45 or so minutes of music: Further Consequences – The Circuit – Mirrors – Mono Lake – Part of the Game – For the Encore – Interpolation One – En Passant. The longest track is Mirrors at over 9 minutes. The whole is beautifully crafted with the three constituent members of the trio bouncing off each other musically and rhythmically. The listening experience is a delight, but not particularly challenging: a bit like a stroll in the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon – very pleasant, but not too adventurous. Every now and then though, the boys leave the path and take out a pedalo on the lake without a life jacket.
In his day job Benedikt Jahnel is a researcher in a Berlin institute, his interest is in “interacting particle systems in the context of probability theory”, so I guess he needs to let his hair down every now and then!
The Invariant was recorded in Rainbow Studio, Oslo and produced for ECM by Manfred Eicher. The trio are touring the North American continent and mainland Europe, but no UK dates are currently planned.
Hugh C.
The CD is available in the UK on ECM (6025 5712837 6)
No comments :
Post a Comment