An album that surely if not already an acolyte will usher in a Pauline conversion.
I got up this morning looking for something really special to begin a new day of listening. It’s a struggle sometimes and nothing I found really satisfied me until I found these pieces of eight. The spirit of Paul Motian is strongly felt.
Gold. Recorded in a single session at New York’s Power Station after a week-long residency at the Village Vanguard, 8 given this has the feel of a band already deeply immersed inside the music. It just needs capturing for posterity and capturing it magically all involved certainly do.
It made me even go back and listen to Sunday at the Village Vanguard for the first time in ages. Paul Motian was famously part of this classic with Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro (just 10 days before the bassist’s untimely death in a car crash) in 1961.
It’s not really an exaggeration to cast the Aarhus born 48-year-old as the 21st century Bill Evans of the guitar. Because Bro’s poetic guitar sound like Evans’ at the piano finds mood and emotion that you didn’t know even exist anywhere.
Very much not a tech Bro in ideology or intent on swamping his music in lots of over production either, the Dane’s sound sits at the centre of an ensemble that happily has no respect for norms or compromises.
So you somehow because of this get a modernism that then goes on to translate, just as the best elements of Evansiana also do, into a certain out-of-any-one-time period that future proofs the approach via advanced harmony, a certain vulnerability and quiet passion. You hear this best of all on ‘Mild’ more on which later.
There’s Chris Cheek and Jesper Zeuthen famed in chillier Scandi climes primarily for his work in formidable old progsters Blue Sun providing the saxophone parts, Craig Taborn on piano who goes very free on ‘Drum Music’ one of the highlights of the album.
Mehldau legend Larry Grenadier and Anders Christensen known for his work with English ECM guitar star Rob Luft on Life is a Dancer and writing a banger called ‘Berlin’ – he was also with Bro on Stańko 2009 classic Dark Eyes – do the double on double bass. The great Wayne Shorter Quartet drummer Brian Blade and Marcus Gilmore (Chick Corea, Vijay Iyer) bring two very different drumming perspectives to add a lot of cross rhythms and power where needed and above all open ended rhythm, a double act that proves as responsive as it does indispensably pro-active.
Fear not it isn’t at all a feat or spectacle of super sizing just done for show or max headroom. So while you get doubling up on sax, drums and bass you don’t get a feeling of a lop sided shape to the grouping at all. And counter intuitively you even gain that Nordic spareness and lots of space dug out from what seems like nowhere that you’d think would be crowded out entirely by the intensity of the raw emotions and the clamour of sounds aching to be exposed. Reader, you will be relieved to know – they aren’t in the slightest.
Bro is in the centre of the shot looking to the side. The spirit of Paul Motian is strongly felt
It’s been a Paul Motian kind of week (see album of the week) and in addition to the Bro originals key Motian work notably ‘Mumbo Jumbo’ from the 1990s covered appealingly by Anat Fort in recent years and the aforementioned ‘Drum Music’ (also interpreted on the Cheek album Dear Paul) and ‘It Should’ve Happened a Long Time Ago’ form a big theme on 8. It isn’t a random choice of compositional focus as Bro like Cheek was a member of Motian’s Electric BeBop Band and Bro and Motian share an instinct for melodies that can remain open-ended while allowing the rhythm section to shift the ground beneath them. The result is music that moves between spaciousness and sudden activity without losing its sense of ensemble shape. ‘Mild’ is the track I gravitate to most for its humaneness and quiet fire. It burns itself on to the imagination and clears away the dead remains of the day ready for a future unknown landscape to establish itself. The piece owes an origin story to a studio collaboration between Bro and electronic producer Thomas Knak found on their 2012 album, Bro/Knak. Years later, the composition found a completely different life on stage when Bro brought it to trio featuring bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Joey Baron. The tune became a centerpiece of Bay Of Rainbows, actually showcases the piece twice. It opens with a sprawling, eleven-minute live version and closes with a shorter variation, proving how much room the composition leaves for spontaneous reinvention. The piece continued to follow the trio across the globe, eventually being captured on film for the music documentary Music For Black Pigeons.
- More reading – I reviewed Bro appearing with the Belonging band’s Jon Christensen (1943-2020) and Thomas Morgan for Downbeat at the Vortex in 2013. The piece is here
- I loved 2015’s Gefion. And 8 is just as strong. It immediately goes into my top albums of 2026 list – you can see the updated list here.
- Plus you can read a 2018 interview I did with Bro
Bro has another new album called Bjerge, Strand featuring Charles Lloyd soon. Larry Grenadier from this recording is also on it as is Catalan drum master Jorge Rossy – click for details
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