Review of Gefion by Jakob Bro, ECM, 2015
What a truly remarkable and interesting record this Gefion, first job as leaders by the Danish guitarist Jakob Bro for the ECM label; It comes after an intense apprenticeship and after the projects in collaboration with Paul Motian and Tomasz Stanko. His career is really impeccable, Bro is one of the most established Danish jazz musicians, won numerous awards, recorded ten albums as a leader (with guests at the highest level, as Bill Frisell, Kenny Wheeler, Paul Bley, Kurt Rosenwinkel, George Garzone) and other albums as a sideman. This disc was produced, we said, as a leader of a trio with Jon Christensen on drums and bassist Thomas Morgan: For those not familiar, the Norwegian drummer Jon Christensen is a true legend in the environment of the ECM label for which he recorded many albums, a musician who stands out for playing which tends to avoid the explicit reckoning of time in favor of a more open approach; completes the trio bassist Thomas Morgan, also well known session musician.
The result of their brilliant and creative interaction is this Gefion, perfect example of sophisticated jazz, very elegant, elaborate, where the complexity compositions fits perfectly with the insight contained in improvisations in which the musicians are alternated in a ten songs per disc a total of 40 minutes of great music.
It was a long time that I did not feel so opened atmosphere and at the same time elegant, dreamy and rarefied, with delicate melodies, and so expressive rhythmic twists. Gefion is as a whole a relaxed and evocative album, dreamy and elegant melodically. Some time ago about Gefion, I wrote on Facebook that maybe we had found the heir of Bill Frisell, I did not mean to say that Jakob copy the great American master, but found myself in his style dilated those elements and suspension that are characteristic of Frisell guitar, as well as the use of the delay, Jakob appropriates creating with them his very mature and innovative musical language. As often happens in the discs produced by ECM image of the cover is perfectly aligned with the musical content of the disc
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