Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A different sort of "soul" music, 16 Dec 2003
How did you come to be checking out Bobo Stenson? Assuming that you didn't stumble onto this page while looking for Bobo the clown, the fact that you're here means that you're one of those out-of-the-ordinary musical explorers rather than one of the mainstream many who stick to the safe highways of easy-on-the-ear music. And I bet you're one of those inquisitive types who actually reads the liner notes and takes note of who plays what on which tracks.So you're probably the sort of person who has the discrimination to recognize outstanding musicians, and the patience to listen to what they're doing. "Serenity" will reward you richly. I first came across the great Bobo on Charles Lloyd's excellent "Fish out of water", bought on the strength of a Q-magazine recommendation years ago. And maybe 10 years after first buying it I was listening again and was intrigued by the piano playing. By this time Amazon.com was doing its stuff and I was able to check whether there were any Bobo Stenson recordings. Hey presto, "Serenity". One click and it was done. On several tracks I found the sound that had first intrigued me - the opening "T", "El Mayor" and "Golden Rain" for example. But a number of others were too abstract for my liking and the CD languished at the bottom of the pile for a couple of years, until I once again felt a yen for that sound. Since then I've played this double CD through endlessly, including all the more abstract pieces. The beauty of the music and the playing has gradually revealed itself. Initially it tends to remind people of Keith Jarrett, probably because he's become the standard reference for ECM-type piano. But the sensibility is different. Certainly Stenson has an easily accessible sweetly lyrical vein, but the reward is in finding out just how different he is. Thank you Bobo Stenson, Anders Jormin and Jon Christensen for opening my ears just that little wider. When's the next CD?
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Serene, but with an edge, 2 Oct 2003
By A Customer
I love all of Stenson's ECM work, and this disc is another step forward for him. Graciously leaving a lot of the writing limelight to bassist Jormin - in my opinion one of the world's best - Stenson nonetheless stamps his personality all over the 2 discs with his thoughtful and beautiful playing. The inclusion of 'covers' by the likes of Alban Berg and Charles Ives is an added bonus, for he brings something special to these pieces, puts them through his own filter to create something unique every time. Anders Jormin's bass playing has never been better, never more quietly brilliant, and Jon Cristensen's playing - drumming is too crude a term for what he does here - weaves delicate but strong textures over which the other two work their magic. I enjoy the wide range of moods here, from the harmonically simple and attractive to more abstract pieces, not to mention the covers, of course, all of which go to make these 2 discs a source of discovery every time they are played.
Keith Jarrett - much as I love his earlier stuff - was never in this territory, believe me.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
5 stars, and still underrated, 6 Jan 2009
5 stars, and still underrated, because this is the greatest achievement by a piano trio since Bill Evans' Village Vanguard recordings. And no, I am neither drunk nor insane.
Bill Evans re-invented the piano trio, in fact, the small jazz ensemble, by adopting the principles of classical chamber music. Up to Evans, a jazz piano trio was a piano playing over a rhythm set by drums and bass. Listen to a Mozart piano trio, and you'll see how things could be (and were) done differently. In chamber music, the instruments communicate. The musical whole is created by all three (four, five...) instruments together. Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian transferred that to the jazz idiom and things were never the same, afterwards.
That said, both a Bill Evans piano trio and a Mozart piano trio are still that: piano trios. This is where Bobo Stenson comes in. Just like Bill Evans (or Brad Mehldau, to complete the list of true wunderkind jazz pianists) his vocabulary and phrasing owe as much to classical music as to jazz and folk. What makes him the greatest inventor, indeed the next re-definer of jazz piano music, is that his trios are not piano trios anymore. Each CD is actually equally weighted, balanced between all three musicians. Drums and bass are just as important as the piano. Stenson's playing might dominate one piece, drums or bass are bound to dominate the next one. Often, it's impossible to make out any dominating instrument. It's not by chance that his conspirators in his musical adventures usually contribute more material than he does himself.
This double CD is Stenson's finest achievement. All his other trio albums deserve five stars, but this deserves six (with the only other jazz piano trio achieving six being Evans, LaFaro and Motian at the Vanguard). There is an enormously wide range of music, from abstract minimalistic music that has as much to do with modern classical than with jazz, via folky sing-along types of tunes to what will be considered jazz even by the most traditionalist of listeners. Still, it's all part of the same adventurous musical journey, undertaken by three exceptional musicians to whom genre is but yesterday's limitation - and who therefore arrive at a redefinition of what jazz is today.
Take any one piece on this CD and listen to it three times running. You will not only not be bored, but will probably want to give it another three times to fully appreciate the music. What a box of gems!
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