Reviews

Jasper Somsen, Carsten Lindholm, Jan Gunnar Hoff, Human Vibe, Challenge ****

marlbankUpdated 23 March 20262 Mins read

Vince Mendoza fans – form a long queue.

Because in addition to tunes written by each member of the Human Vibe trio there are treatments of the great composer/arranger’s ‘Esperança’ and ‘She Never Has A Window.’

The latter of these pieces was interpreted by the Weather Report drummer Peter Erskine along with the “Belonging” Band bass icon Palle Danielsson and English jazz piano legend John Taylor on 1993 ECM album, You Never Know.

And the former Mendoza masterpiece you should go hear in an incredibly sumptuous, sunlit 1990s Epiphany treatment with the London Symphony Orchestra that Taylor and Erskine were on, as was hugely influential saxophone player Michael Brecker.

Overall Human Vibe is a heart warming and very aesthetic art of the piano trio affair.

The tunes by band members, who hail from Holland, Denmark and Norway respectively and have a lot of quality and depth. Of these I’d go for the Danish drummer Carsten Lindholm’s ‘Song For Laila’ most. Pianist Jan Gunnar Hoff is very Keith Jarrett like in places and the whole spell is Jarrettonian which means that it proves intense, rhapsodic, tender and expressive using melodicism as a framework and using instinctive freedoms and the language of modern jazz to interpret the raw material to massive effect.

Jasper Somsen, Invites Anton Goudsmit – Live! Challenge ***1/2

Somsen’s album featuring Dutch guitarist Anton Goudsmit released last year also appealed. But if anything this new release is even better especially for the brace of Mendoza tunes.

The trio a couple of years ago released an earlier album called Northwest which had a track dedicated to Enrico Pieranunzi. Somsen has worked extensively with the Italian master. Of their work together I’d recommend Common View.

A live version of Somsen tune ‘Rubalacaba.’

The antithesis of grandstanding

On this latest another master pianist is paid tribute to in Gonzalo Rubalcaba. So in the end the album taps into the tender side of human consciousness.

It’s the very antithesis of brain dead grandstanding, the egoism of our current populist strongman age, and proves an anitidote against aggression and anger whose charms linger long in the air after the last note sounds and move to stave off the decay of memory for at least a welcome while.