Tuva Halse Quintet, Two, Jazzland ***1/2

Like a lot of music issued under the banner of jazz these days what you get on Two only corresponds with some of your expectations and certainly lands a world away from swing rooted American jazz or furiously paced hard bop. It's unusual to have a …

Published: 20 Oct 2023. Updated: 48 days.

Like a lot of music issued under the banner of jazz these days what you get on Two only corresponds with some of your expectations and certainly lands a world away from swing rooted American jazz or furiously paced hard bop. It's unusual to have a violinist as leader and Tuva Halse who is from Molde in Norway certainly impresses in that demanding role with the originality of her tunes often hymnal and dreamy and her fine playing often imbued with a strong percussive sense and intent on deftly florid breakaway passages. On trumpet Oscar Andreas Haug sounds a bit like Mathias Eick and as on an Eick record you get lots of bittersweet melancholia and some great tonal smears and detours ahead. The quintet is completed by pianist Benjamín Gísli Einarsson, bassist Gard Kronborg and drummer Øyvind Leite. Together the five conjure a certain turn down the lamp mood that has plenty of shivery pleasures to it - Halse is well worth discovering. Out today

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Kevin Hays, Ben Street, Billy Hart, Bridges, Smoke Sessions ****

As satisfying a piano trio album as we have come across in months and months, pianist Kevin Hays, bassist Ben Street and NEA Jazz Master drummer Billy Hart have come up smelling of roses once again. The album has original compositions by Hays and …

Published: 20 Oct 2023. Updated: 48 days.

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As satisfying a piano trio album as we have come across in months and months, pianist Kevin Hays, bassist Ben Street and NEA Jazz Master drummer Billy Hart have come up smelling of roses once again. The album has original compositions by Hays and Hart that suit the canon very well plus classics by Wayne Shorter, Bill Frisell, The Beatles, and Milton Nascimento. We were reminded a little of Ethan Iverson's Live at the Village Vanguard album from a few years ago as the style of the album here suits that particular seam of contemporary American piano jazz. This trio first got together for All Things Are and here recording at Sear Sound in New York continue the story. On 'Butterfly' Hays who plays marvellously throughout this fine record has also composed lyrics for the piece but here in its instrumental version its song-like qualities are never in doubt. Out today.

l-r: Kevin Hays, Ben Street, Billy Hart, photo from the cover art