GA Russell

The Seattle Times is reporting that Seattle is considering hiring Marc Trestman as its OC. Trestman recruited Russell Wilson to play for State. http://3downnation.com/2018/01/10/argos-marc-trestman-candidate-seahawks-oc-job-report/#comments ***** Johnny Manziel's agent made some disrespectful comments about the league, which some feel may have reduced the Ticats' interest in signing him. http://3downnation.com/2018/01/07/manziel-returns-social-media-hint-cfl-comeback-troll-browns/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/07/ticats-make-johnny-manziel-a-contract-offer/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/07/ticats-keep-johnny-manziels-rights-offer/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/08/johnny-manziels-agent-breaks-silence-loudest-possible-way/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/08/statement-manziels-agent-tone-deaf-come/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/08/johnny-manziel-backs-agent-public-statement/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/09/milton-agent-helps-johnny-manziel-execute-early-cfl-heel-turn/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/09/bombers-qb-matt-nichols-on-johnny-manziel-back-it-up-on-the-field/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/09/3downnation-podcast-johnny-manziels-outrageous-demands-and-the-cfl-quarterback-situation/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/10/henry-burris-would-not-pay-johnny-manziel-500-grand/#comments ***** Dave Dickenson has been elected to the College Football Hall of Fame! http://3downnation.com/2018/01/08/stampeders-dave-dickenson-part-2018-college-football-hall-fame-class/#comments

Each "listen" button will provide one track. ******* Bobo Stenson Trio Contra la indecisión Bobo Stenson piano | Anders Jormin double bass | Jon Fält drums A decisively beautiful new album on which the great Swedish trio of Bobo Stenson draws upon a wide range of source materials So strong is the group’s character and the musical identity of each of its members that the integration of this material always feels organic and logical. Stenson’s lyrical touch, Jormin’s folk-flavored arco bass and Jon Fält’s flickering, textural drumming are all well-displayed on Contra la indecisión, the trio’s first new recording in six years. John Surman Invisible Threads John Surman saxophones, bass clarinet Nelson Ayres piano | Rob Waring vibraphone, marimba Saxophonist and clarinettist John Surman is often characterized as a quintessentially English improviser and composer, and hints of folk music and a pastoral ambience are well-loved attributes of his music. Yet he also has a long history of working with musicians from other countries and cultures, players united by such invisible threads as a shared feeling for melody that transcends the idioms. Thomas Strønen / Time Is A Blind Guide Lucus Ayumi Tanaka piano | Håkon Aase violin | Lucy Railton violoncello Ole Morten Vågan double bass | Thomas Strønen drums, percussion Norwegian drummer/composer Thomas Strønen presents a revised edition of his acoustic collective Time Is A Blind Guide, now trimmed to quintet size, and with a new pianis. in Wakayama-born Ayumi Tanaka. Tanaka has spoken of seeking associative connections between Japan and Norway in her improvising, a tendency Strønen seems to be encouraging with his space-conscious writing for the ensemble, letting in more light. As on the group’s eponymously-titled and critically-lauded debut album there are excellent contributions from the string players – the quintet effectively contains both a string trio and a piano trio – and Manfred Eicher’s production brings out all the fine detail in the grain of the collective sound and the halo of its overtones, captured in the famously-responsive acoustic of Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in March 2017. Kit Downes Obsidian Kit Downes church organs with Tom Challenger tenor saxophone Kit Downes’s previous ECM appearance was as pianist on the debut recording ofTime Is A Blind Guide in 2015 and he’s critically-regarded as one of the UK’s outstanding young jazz talents. In reviewing a recent concert of this material, critic John Marley of Jazz Views conjured the following: “Imagine that you are stranded in an alien and hostile environment. The sound you hear is constant, yet ever changing. It evolves, creeps, terrifies and fascinates. A slow rumble resonates through the air like the mechanical revolutions of a distant engine. Organic sounds emanate from the church organ. Kit Downes patiently manipulates the instrument to draw out a succession of pules accelerating frequencies and violent distortions. Brisk forays across the keyboard come and go. The notes run across your path like a creature, so quick they are almost unidentifiable….Hypnotic…” © 2017 ECM | ECM Records USA | 1755 Broadway, 3rd floor | New York NY 10011

The commissioner has cleared Johnny Manziel to play in the league. Here is the latest news of the situation. http://3downnation.com/2017/11/08/johnny-manziel-sporting-non-football-dad-bod-recent-photos/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/04/cfl-deadline-for-johnny-manziel-process-extended-into-january/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/05/ticats-ceo-mitchell-on-the-future-of-collaros-masoli-and-manziel/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/07/ticats-coach-june-jones-ripped-saying-manziel-best-player-ever/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/13/cfl-commish-feels-johnny-manziel-has-come-to-a-good-place-in-his-life/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/13/new-b-c-gm-ed-hervey-chirps-the-media-talks-lulay-and-johnny-football/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/21/cfl-commissioner-rooting-johnny-manziel/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/28/cfl-clears-johnny-manziel-play-next-season/#comments http://159.203.52.247/2017/12/28/ticats-have-10-days-to-offer-johnny-manziel-a-contract/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/28/ticats-cleared-to-sign-johnny-manziel-if-the-team-wants/#comments http://www.3downnation.com/2017/12/28/3downpodcast-happens-next-johnny-manziel/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/28/milton-ticats-will-get-something-manziel-one-way-another/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/29/ticats-qb-options-now-johnny-manziel-kinda-fold/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/29/argos-marcus-ball-on-johnny-manziel-nobody-cares-about-what-you-used-to-be/#comments http://3downnation.com/2017/12/30/als-need-new-face-franchise-johnny-manziel/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/02/might-johnny-manziel-get-paid-cfl/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/02/brandon-banks-manziel-stopping-talking-someone-hasnt-prove-nothing/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/03/kent-austin-keeping-close-contact-johnny-manziels-agent/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/04/austin-ticats-would-be-foolish-not-to-offer-manziel-a-contract/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/04/3downnations-justin-dunk-on-sn590-the-fan-discussing-qb-happenings-around-the-cfl/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/04/ticats-vp-kent-austin-johnny-manziel-wants-to-play-unequivocally/#comments

Here is an update from two weeks ago, listing the ten brands with the largest percentage decline. Budweiser is #5. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/beers-americans-no-longer-drink/ss-BBH9Xwe?OCID=ansmsnnews11#image=1

San Francisco Bay Area Guitarist/Composer George Cotsirilos To Release "Mostly in Blue," His Sixth Album, January 19 on OA2 Records CD Features His Working Trio of Bassist Robb Fisher & Drummer Ron Marabuto + Pianist Keith Saunders February CD Release Shows Planned for Several San Francisco & East Bay Venues January 3, 2018 Jazz guitarist/composer George Cotsirilos had previously recorded mostly in a trio setting with longtime associates Robb Fisher on bass and Ron Marabuto on drums. For his forthcoming sixth CD, Mostly in Blue, he expanded to a quartet, with pianist Keith Saunders, to shake up his approach a bit but also in the interests of being true to the music he was hearing in his head. OA2 Records will release the new CD on January 19. "I started hearing a little different sound connected to the tunes I was writing," Cotsirilos says. "It seemed more amenable to a quartet, with a little more harmony underlying the melody line." The trio tested out its chemistry with Saunders, a mainstay of the New York jazz scene with whom the guitarist had never played but both Fisher and Marabuto had. "When we first got together, it wasn't hard to tell it was working," he says. "We kind of jelled immediately. In the studio, even before we started playing tunes, when we were playing to get the sound, the chemistry was there. It's stunning how quickly Keith was there, on top of everything." Every track on the album was recorded in one or two takes. In addition to six Cotsirilos originals, the repertoire includes a luminous arrangement of the Harry Warren-Mack Gordon classic "I Wish I Knew," where Saunders's presence liberates the stylistically wide-ranging guitarist to play legato more than he usually does. Another highlight is a feverishly fast performance of the Charlie Parker classic "Crazeology." The band worked as their own producers in collaboration with engineer Dave Luke, a decorated veteran of Fantasy Records with whom Cotsirilos had worked several times. "We wanted the album to have a live feel," says Cotsirilos, and this live-in-studio sound can be heard as much in the playing as in the engineering, whether on Bird's bebop burner or the guitarist's slinky "Ms. Luna," written for his "troublemaking" cat. "Blue Dusk," another Cotsirilos original, is a darkly shimmying tune with a swaying movement that puts the listener in the best kind of mood to greet the evening. And then there's "Down, Not Out," which in speaking to and for the underdog in these agonizing times suggests a cure for the melancholy many people are feeling today. George Cotsirilos was born in Chicago in 1951. Under the influence of his aunt, a classical music devotee, he chose violin as his first instrument. His involvement in jazz was elevated when an uncle who'd played drums with the Woody Herman Orchestra took him to hear Louis Armstrong. Seeing Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner play at Chicago's venerated London House turned him on to the piano. But during his teen years, with local notables including the Butterfield Blues Band and Michael Bloomfield making a national noise, he became strongly involved in blues guitar. In 1969, Cotsirilos enrolled at UC Berkeley as a sociology major. He taught himself blues riffs, using his background in piano to improve technique. A turning point for him came when he commenced music studies with Warren Nunes, a phenomenal jazz guitarist and prolific writer of guitar books. Nunes shifted Cotsirilos's attention to jazz and had him listen not just to great guitarists such as Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass but also luminaries on other instruments, among them John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Bill Evans. Cotsirilos studied classical guitar privately as well through the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Music wasn't the only thing vying for Cotsirilos's future. Born into a family of lawyers -- his late father, George, Sr., the son of Greek immigrants, was a prominent Chicago defense attorney -- Cotsirilos acquired a law degree with thoughts of getting involved in social causes. He became an assistant public defender, then moved on to a successful criminal defense practice in San Francisco and a faculty position at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, where he taught criminal trial practice for fifteen years. At the same time, Cotsirilos continued to practice, perform, and record jazz, releasing co-led quartet and quintet albums featuring venerated drummer Eddie Marshall, and, in 2003, his first solo album, Silenciosa. He subsequently released three trio recordings with Fisher and Marabuto. While he finally retired in recent years from practicing and teaching law, he has remained deeply involved in music. "I have done what I have for a number of reasons, both personal and socio-philosophical," he reflects. "Involvement in criminal law, while still trying to maintain and grow as a musician, was a life experience that was intense, often very rewarding, but also frenetic. Music, which was always there as a salvation, really, remains and now gets my full attention." The George Cotsirilos Quartet will be performing CD release shows at the following: 2/10Bird & Beckett, San Francisco; 2/18 St. Albans Church, Albany, CA; 2/25 Chez Hanny, San Francisco. Photography: Billy Douglas George Cotsirilos "Mostly in Blue" EPK Web Site: georgecotsirilos.com Follow:

BREAKING: The Riders have released Kevin Glenn http://3downnation.com/2018/01/04/riders-release-quarterback-kevin-glenn/#comments http://3downnation.com/2018/01/04/bombers-eskimos-to-be-in-the-mix-to-sign-qb-kevin-glenn/#comments https://www.cfl.ca/2018/01/04/riders-release-quarterback-kevin-glenn/ ***** BREAKING: The Argos have signed James Franklin. http://3downnation.com/2018/01/04/argos-agree-to-terms-with-qb-james-franklin/#comments https://www.cfl.ca/2018/01/04/argos-franklin-agree-extension/

BREAKING: The Ticats have traded Zach Collaros to the Riders for the tenth pick in the draft. http://3downnation.com/2018/01/03/ticats-trade-qb-zach-collaros-riders/#comments https://www.cfl.ca/2018/01/03/riders-acquire-zach-collaros-ticats/ https://www.tsn.ca/ticats-send-qb-collaros-to-roughriders-1.957824

Paul, it was much more than an NYC thing. I remember asking my Bostonian mother about it fifty years ago when I was in high school (though I don't now remember why).

Guys, with the New Year I am retiring from looking up everyone's birthday each day. If any would like to take over that pleasure, it is all yours!

Jim, I'd be very surprised if there is a single regular poster who wouldn't be happy to pay his fair share. How many regular posters are there now?

Kevin, I had forgotten that you like the Blue Jean cables! I pulled the trigger on the Pangea Vulcan rack this evening. Thanks again for your opinions.

Happy Birthday 2017 LW!

Happy Christmas Birthday Pim!

Here's where I am now: Mail order store Audio Advisor currently has a sale on Pangea racks. http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=PGVULRK My receiver is an Onkyo TX-8255. My turntable is a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon. Amazon has the Pro-Ject pre-amp for $79.00 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000YEK1AQ/ Audio Advisor has been promoting its Pangea cables, which are the work of a guy named Jay Victor. Perhaps you know and have an opinion of him. http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=PGICCARR ***** TTK, the visual aesthetic which affects my perception is what the bill looks like!!!

Kevin, I am slowly building my system when things go on sale. So nothing has been played yet. By the way, isn't there somewhere here a discussion of cables, and whether good ones are worth the price?

The Wire (complete) - $49.99 prime https://www.amazon.com/Wire-Complete-Various/dp/B005NFJAWG

RIP, Moose. We will miss you.

John, Tidal is a competitor of Spotify. It was started by Jay Z for the purpose of paying the artists more money.

Thanks, guys. Yes, that is sharp, but I am not really interested in the looks - only whether it does the job well. By the way, my receiver has a phonograph preamp. If I were to buy a preamp made for my turntable, would it improve the sound?

What does this group think about various stereo system racks? Does it make any difference what you use?

Tidal is free through Jan. 5. http://tidal.com/us/try-now

Merry Christmas everyone!

Happy Birthday 2017 Jeff! Fifty is a good round number!

Happy Birthday 2017 Swinger!

ECM John Surman Invisible Threads John Surman: baritone and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet Nelson Ayres: piano Rob Waring: vibraphone, marimba U.S. Release date: January 19, 2018 ECM 2588 B0027869-02 UPC: 6025 671 1317 1 The great British saxophonist and clarinettist John Surman introduces a fascinating new trio with Brazilian pianist Nelson Ayres and US vibraphonist Rob Waring, and a program of engaging compositions whose evocative themes invite subtle instrumental interaction. The story of the project really begins a decade ago, when Surman was playing with Jack DeJohnette’s Ripple Effect group. The rapport between Surman and singer Marlui Miranda in that ensemble led to an invitation to visit her Brazilian homeland, and to participate in a recording inspired by the songs of the Juruna people of the Amazon Basin. Out of this collaboration came the first meetings with pianist Nelson Ayres. Ayres is highly regarded in Brazil as an arranger, composer and soloist, and he has worked with Airto Moreira, Milton Nascimento, Chico Buarque, César Camargo Mariano, Astrud Gilberto amongst many others, as well as visitors from Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Carter to Anat Cohen. Ayres led his own big band through the 1970s and into the 1980s, and in the early 1990s became conductor and artistic director of the Orquestra Jazz Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, bringing a Brazilian orchestral aesthetic to bear on contemporary music, often with jazz soloists. He is perhaps best known for his work with the group Pau Brasil. The experience of playing together, both live and on Marlui Miranda’s album Fala de Bicho, Fala de Gente, left both Surman and Ayres with a wish to do more, and John began drafting material, initially for a duo album. “But almost as soon as I began writing I was hearing a third musical voice in my mind.” That third voice was to be Rob Waring, the New York born mallet percussionist who, like Surman himself, is now a resident of Norway. Last heard on ECM with Mats Eilertsen on the album Rubicon, Rob Waring has been based in Oslo since 1981. His work spans a broad spectrum of musical approaches and styles. He studied classical percussion at the Juilliard School, and has played jazz improvised music in many forms. In 2002 he studied music in Bali, an experience which has been source of inspiration for his own music. Waring was a member of the experimental jazz band Søyr from 1986 to 2006 and has performed and recorded with David Friedman, Jon Eberson, Misha Alperin and many others, and composed commissioned works for soloists, chamber ensembles, jazz groups and choirs, as well as electroacoustic music. With his contributing musicians living 10,000 kilometres apart, Surman had little opportunity to road-test his new material: “Nelson and I managed to meet up in São Paulo for a couple of days to try out a few ideas and I later played through some of these ideas with Rob in Oslo. Eventually, a few days before the recording session, Nelson arrived in Oslo and we played together as a trio for the first time. Happily we all felt comfortable playing as a trio immediately - perhaps because we share a wide range of musical interests. Although we all have a background in jazz improvisation, Nelson brings with him a wealth of experience performing Brazilian instrumental music, whilst Rob's work as a classical percussionist and his interest in a broad scope of contemporary music adds yet another colour." Almost all the pieces were created for this album, although “Stoke Damerel”, named for the Plymouth parish where Surman once lived, was in the concert repertoire of John’s duo with organist Howard Moody (the duo can be heard on the album Rain On The Window.) Two pieces emerged in the course of the session: “After we’d finished playing the tune called ‘Byndweed’, there was a feeling that there was something more to be explored in its harmonic content. We were looking at that, and Manfred suggested we make some sort of chorale out its harmonies. So the piece which is called ‘At First Sight’ grew out of that idea, and so did ‘Another Reflection’…” *** Already by the mid-1960s John Surman (born in Devon in 1944) was one of the most widely celebrated of European jazz musicians. His agile baritone playing with the Mike Westbrook Orchestra, John McLaughlin, and Chris McGregor stunned musicians, critics and listeners alike, and he swept the jazz polls, touring Japan with a Down Beat poll-winners group in 1970. With his own groups he continued to make waves – particularly with The Trio, with Barre Phillips and Stu Martin, a band that set new standards for intense small group interaction. It was with these musicians that Surman would make his debut ECM appearance, on Phillips’s innovative Mountainscapes in 1976.This was soon followed by the Surman solo album Upon Reflectionand thereafter by a sequence of remarkable recordings in many instrumental configurations and formats. These have included duos with Jack DeJohnette, the Brass Project co-led with John Warren, a Nordic Quartet with Karin Krog and Terje Rypdal, collaborations with Paul Bley, large scale works such as Proverbs and Songs (with the Salisbury Festival Chorus) and Free and Equal (with London Brass), and music with the Trans4mation String Quartet and Chris Laurence (Coruscating and The Spaces In Between). John Surman has won numerous awards for his work, including most recently the Ivor Novello Jazz Award 2017, in recognition of his outstanding jazz compositions. *** Invisible Threads was recorded at Oslo’s Rainbow Studio in July 2017 and produced by Manfred Eicher. Plans for a 2018 European tour by John Surman, Nelson Ayres and Rob Waring are currently being finalised. ECM Kit Downes Obsidian Kit Downes: church organ with Tom Challenger: tenor saxophone Release date: January 19, 2018 ECM 2559 B0027871-02 UPC: 6025 578 2651 7 Obsidian is the first ECM solo album from Kit Downes. Previously heard as pianist on the debut recording of Thomas Strønen’s group Time Is A Blind Guide in 2015, Downes (born 1986 in Norwich, UK) is widely-regarded as one of the outstanding British jazz players of his generation, through his work with his trio and with groups such as Troyka, the Golden Age of Steam and Enemy, as well as long running collaborations with Stan Sulzmann and Clark Tracey. The present recording, however, has little overt connection to “jazz” – although it could only have been made by an improviser of subtle sensibilities, and wide-ranging musical knowledge. It features Downes on church organ, exploring the idiosyncrasies of three different instruments. First, we hear the grand three-manual organ of London’s Union Chapel, built by Henry Willis in 1877, the size and the scale of the instrument immediately apparent on opening track “Kings”. Later, the scene shifts to the Suffolk countryside with a two-manual organ at the ancient church of St John’s in Snape, and finally a single manual instrument with no pedalboard, basically a converted harmonium, at St Edmund’s Church in Bromeswell. Small or large, the instruments have their distinct characteristics, imaginatively emphasized in the music Downes has created for each of them, “giving a push and pull to the recording, in terms of dynamic and size.” Some of Downes’s earliest musical experiences were with the pipe organ and in recent years he has been revisiting it, encouraged by saxophonist Tom Challenger who appears as guest on one track here (“Modern Gods”). Downes’s and Challenger’s earlier improvisational project Vyamanikal found them making an exploratory journey around England’s churches, which helped establish a familiarity with some of the instruments heard here. “I started writing with the idea of getting these organs from different parts of the UK speaking to each other. All built at different times, with different stops and different sounds. It feels like time-travelling, somehow trying to find a common thread.” With the exception of the well-travelled traditional tune “Black Is The Colour” (of Scottish origin, it found a new home in the Appalachians, and in the early 1960s was famously adapted by Berio for his Folk Songs collection), and the final track “The Gift” – based on a composition by Kit’s father – all music here is by Downes. It has been created in diverse ways. Some pieces, including “Seeing Things”, are purely improvised. “Rings of Saturn” is a composite of several improvisations recorded at the Snape church. For other pieces improvisation suggested a direction to be followed further. “I would jot down elements that I found particularly interesting, then start to fill in the cracks between the abstract ideas to make fuller pieces.” Obsidian is also a reflection upon other traditions of improvising associated with the organ, and Kit speaks with admiration of Messiaen’s work in this context. “The organ is the ultimate orchestrator. What really appeals to me about Messiaen’s improvisations is how he blends the sounds of the instrument to give real form and colour to the performance. You can be both an improviser and an orchestrator in the moment.” Obsidian was recorded in November 2016. A year later, Downes toured with some of its repertoire, performing the music in contexts ranging from the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival to Jazzfest Berlin, and netting many positive reviews: "Of all the concerts I have heard in this space, Downes’s command of the intricacies and expressive potential of that grand and ancient instrument, the pipe organ, were the most impressive", wrote Josef Woodward in Downbeat, reviewing Kit’s concert at the Keiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. “Some of the greatest moments” of the Huddersfield Festival “were the gentlest,” wrote Guy Dammann in The Spectator, citing the “luminous glow” of Downes’s rendition of “Black Is The Colour”. Kit Downes is currently preparing a new round of solo concerts, and also developing new trio music for church organ, saxophone and guitar. ECM Thomas Strønen Time Is A Blind Guide Lucus Ayumi Tanaka: piano Håkon Aase: violin Lucy Railton: violoncello Ole Morten Vågan: double bass Thomas Strønen: drums, percussion Release date: January 19, 2018 ECM 2576 B0027870-02 UPC: 6025 577 9058 0 Lucus, the second recording from Norwegian drummer/composer Thomas Strønen’s Time Is A Blind Guide, marks a bold step forward from the critically acclaimed debut (described by John Kelman on AllAboutJazz as “a stunning record that stands out as one of Strønen’s most expansive, cinematic and flat-out lyrical albums”). With the group currently trimmed to quintet size, and a new pianist in Wakayama-born Ayumi Tanaka, there is a heightened emphasis on improvisation. “We’ve played much more,” says Strønen, “and built up a trust in the ensemble. All the players have more confidence in the shared expression of the group and, in a positive sense, less dependency on the compositions, which are offered, really, as guidelines. To me it’s important that the players should feel connected to the music and play what’s right for them. When I wrote the music for the first album the sound of the group existed only in my imagination at that point, and there were a lot more notes on paper. But with the repertoire of Lucus, things are opened up. And there is more than one way to interpret these pieces: in concert, something played as a ballad one night might be a piece that simply explodes on the next night.” The music Strønen has written for the ensemble is more space-conscious than last time around, letting in more light, in line with the connotations of the album title, “Lucus” signifying a sacred grove, or a clearing in the forest. The radiant strings seem particularly to bring out this idea. (As it happens, the music was composed in view of the forest, too – Thomas lives out in the Norwegian woodlands). Strønen first heard Ayumi Tanaka a few years ago while teaching at Oslo’s Royal Academy, where he also organised a concert series. “I liked to set challenges for the students and I asked Ayumi to give a solo concert, something she’d never done before. Her performance was just amazing, and I thought immediately that I have to play with her in some setting.” Tanaka substituted for Kit Downes at a few concerts with the first edition of Time Is a Blind Guide. “When she arrived for the first rehearsal she already knew all the material, having learned a dozen complex pieces with tricky time changes and so on by ear, and didn’t need any scores at all.” She was clearly a logical choice to take over the piano chair in the ensemble. Strønen: “I feel a connection between European contemporary music and jazz and Japanese music in the way that she manoeuvres inside the group sound… She can be very abstract in her playing, with a sparse quality I like a lot, and then the next moment full of temperament.” One can perhaps also sense a connection to early Paul Bley in some of Ayumi’s phrases, paraphrases and ellipses. And a further connection to the dawn of new jazz might also be felt in Ole Morten Vågan’s Haden-like bass intro to the piece called “Tension”. But Time Is A Blind Guided is a flexible, mutating ensemble and the quintet effectively contains both a string trio and a piano trio. With Lucus a further dynamic adjustment has taken place, in which cellist Lucy Railton, bassist Ole Morten Vågan and the drummer-leader have drawn closer in the engine room of the ensemble while Tanaka and violinist Håkon Aase, says Strønen, “are fulfilling more of a soloist’s function, on top of what we are doing – at least some of the time.” As on the group’s debut album there are excellent contributions from the string players. The group name Time Is A Blind Guide is taken from Anne Michael’s novel Fugitive Pieces, a connection Strønen underlines with the track of the same title here. The strings here seem to reference both folk music and baroque playing before the piano enters to gently lead the music elsewhere. Manfred Eicher’s production brings out all the fine detail in the grain of the collective sound and the halo of its overtones, captured in the famously-responsive acoustic of Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo in March 2017. Ole Morten Vågan and Håkon Aase have appeared on other ECM recordings recently. Bassist Vågan has been a member of Maciej Obara’s quartet for five years and can be heard on the Polish saxophonist’s ECM debut Unloved. Violinist Håkon Aase plays regularly with trumpeter Mathias Eick’s touring band and is featured on Eick’s new album Ravensburg (release date: March 2018). Thomas Strønen has been an ECM recording artist since 2005 when the label released his album Parish, with Bobo Stenson, Fredrik Ljungkvist and Mats Eilertsen. It was followed by recordings with Food, Strønen’s duo-plus-guests project with Iain Ballamy. Food’s discs include Quiet Inlet, Mercurial Balm and This Is Not A Miracle. ECM Bobo Stenson Trio Contra la indecisión Bobo Stenson: piano Anders Jormin: double bass Jon Fält: drums Release date: January 19, 2018 ECM 2582 B0027868-02 UPC: 6025 578 6976 7 “A strong case can be made that Bobo Stenson is the greatest living jazz pianist born outside the United States. He is a poet of the first order. Stenson’s spontaneous melodic and harmonic discoveries, his trajectories and distant departures, arrive at a breakthrough to lyricism that, once found, sounds like it has always been there.” – Thomas Conrad, Jazz Times Bobo Stenson’s trio takes a stand against indecision on this decisively beautiful new album. Characteristic elements including Stenson’s lyrical touch, Jormin’s folk-flavored arco bass and Jon Fält’s flickering, textural drumming are all well-displayed on Contra la indecisión, the trio’s first new recording in six years. As ever, the group draws upon a wide range of source materials. A yearning title song by Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, Bartók’s adaptation of a Slovak folk song, a piece from Mompou’s Cançons I Danses collection, and Erik Satie’s Elégie all fit into the program, alongside original compositions and group improvising. So strong is the group’s character and the musical identity of each of its members that the assimilation of this material always seems organic and logical. As Ben Ratliff wrote in the New York Times, “In Stenson’s records you don’t hear strategies or contentions, but a natural working flow.” With Stenson, the respectful transformation of the source material is the essential thing. Unlike colleague Anders Jormin, who has five new pieces here, he’s not an especially prolific composer – although his rare tunes, like “Alice” here are worth waiting for – but he brings his own sensibilities to everything played. “We pick things from different areas,” Stenson once explained to All About Jazz. “It doesn’t matter so much where it comes from. For us, it’s more about what we do with it. You try to be true to the original, and you try to take it a little further.” Pieces this time around have come from various contexts. “The Bartók piece was one we’d played together with a choir a few years ago,” says Bobo. “The Satie I’ve known for a long time and always liked. Anders brought in the Rodríguez tune. His pieces seem to work well for us. [The Stenson Trio’s 2007 recording Cantando also opened with a Rodríguez composition] ‘Cancion contra la indecisíon’ is an older Rodríguez song, from the ’70s. And then the Mompou: I’d played some Mompou together with [English saxophonist] Martin Speake a few years ago, also music from the Cançons I Danses, but not this particular piece. When we play the Mompou tune with the trio in concert we often use it as an intro to ‘Don’s Kora Song’ [a Don Cherry composition heard on Cantando]. And then Anders, of course, is always writing and writing music. He brings his tunes to us and we see which ones will work for the trio. What else? The ‘Kalimba Impressions’ is an improvised piece. Jon Fält had two kalimbas with him of different sizes, keys, tonalities. We set up a sort of melody and based the piece around that…” Bobo Stenson and Anders Jormin have been musical partners for more than thirty years now. Early shared projects included work in the co-operative band Rena Rama with saxophonist Lenart Åberg; Stenson also played on Jormin’s 1984 album Nordic Light. Anders subsequently joined Bobo Stenson’s trio, working with its succession of drummers – first Rune Carlsson, then Jon Christensen (see the ECM albums Reflections, War Orphans and Serenity), and Paul Motian (Goodbye). In 2007 the drum chair was taken by a player then little known outside the Swedish free scene, Jon Fält. “We’d been playing with Paul Motian, but Paul had decided he wasn’t going to leave New York anymore, which was difficult for a working band. And Jon Fält I’d known since he was a teenager … I saw him again at the Fasching Club in Stockholm where they had some special event, some celebration. I was supposed to play in duo with the bassist Christian Spering, but I asked Jon to join us for a few pieces. It was such fun that I called Anders afterwards and said ‘I think we have the new drummer for the trio.’” A decade and three albums later, it’s difficult to imagine another player fitting this group so well. Fält’s playful, lightning-quick responses, challenging and detailing the musical action, are fully integrated into the trio’s musical concept and character. Like Cantando and Indicum, Contra la indecisíon was recorded at Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI studio, and produced by Manfred Eicher.