Bobo Stenson on ECM.

[Bol]

I am interested in your opinions on these -- especially Stenson's latest with Paul Motian. I recently got one of Charles Lloyd's ECM CDs and found myself liking Stenson's piano playing much more than Lloyd's sax work. And I also read with interest a recent profile of Stenson in JazzTimes. But the sound clips of Stenson's CDs lead me to think that his CDs are a bit too tepid and uniform. Much of them seem to be slow ballads very slowly played in the over-indulgent style that ECM is famous for. Am I right?

[Nate Dorward]

The new one, Goodbye, is a very fine disc. Only one uptempo track (the Ornette track at the end) but there's enough variety in material & approach to the other tracks that I never felt it was oppressively sameish (whereas I found the most recent Crispell & the Gustavsen rather one-dimensional).

If you like Stenson's work you should also try his stuff with Tomasz Stanko. Bosonossa on Power Bros is fairly aggressive & freeish despite the subtitle ("and other ballads")--the ones on ECM are tamer but excellent.

[Guy Berger]

earlier thread

[jlhoots]

Goodbye is fine, but I prefer War Orphans.

[Joe]

It would be nice to have UNDERWEAR (1971, with Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen) back in circulation.

And, while it does not contain anything like Don Cherry's finest work, I've always liked Stenson's contributions to this session:

[jazzbo]

I'm going to pick up the Mosaic on their next sale.

[Bol]

I got "Goodbye" this past week, and I must admit that my initial reaction was disappointment. But it seems to get better with repeated listening. The last track is so good, I wonder why Stenson did not record more uptempo numbers. I cannot help thinking that some of the slow tracks have dashes of "corn".

[jlhoots]

I got "Goodbye" this past week, and I must admit that my initial reaction was disappointment. But it seems to get better with repeated listening. The last track is so good, I wonder why Stenson did not record more uptempo numbers. I cannot help thinking that some of the slow tracks have dashes of "corn".

Get War Orphans - really.

[jlhoots]

I got "Goodbye" this past week, and I must admit that my initial reaction was disappointment. But it seems to get better with repeated listening. The last track is so good, I wonder why Stenson did not record more uptempo numbers. I cannot help thinking that some of the slow tracks have dashes of "corn".

Get War Orphans - really.