Euro jazzclub scene: hot right now

Here's a glimpse: John Scofield with Jon Cowherd, Vicente Archer and Josh Dion Domicil Dortmund tonight Eli Degibri Clamores Madrid tomorrow Eyolf Dale trio Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene Oslo tomorrow A piano trio more bespoke than off the peg, …

Published: 8 Mar 2023. Updated: 22 days.

Here's a glimpse:

A piano trio more bespoke than off the peg, the pianist and composer Eyolf Dale is more painterly than ever dynamically aided by drummer Audun Kleive in opening passages of new album The Wayfarers (Edition). There is a vibrancy here that complements the darkness often in the writing that double bassist Per Zanussi does so much to draw out by accentuating its melancholia.

Two years on from the release of Being the title Wayfarers itself is a somewhat anachronistic choice of word and one that matches the tendency the album sometimes stylistically adheres to by delving into a time often broodingly or elegiacally long gone.

The rattling intensity where the 37-year-old Telemark born Norwegian Dale is so jangling and metallic on 'The Sky at Sunset' is memorable and yet the most significant track of all is the moving 'Fields of Kyiv'. Its highly evocative mood music somehow sounds as if it belongs in the time of the First World War and not the dark days of today when war again casts a shadow over eastern Europe. Overall preferable and a far more engrossing album than Being, this latest album by the trio rewards quality time listening with the provision of much needed food for thought and quiet reflection.

  • Lina Allemano 4 Arthur's Dublin tomorrow

  • Mary Halvorson Amaryllis Sextet Bimhuis Amsterdam 10 March

  • Danny Grissett Trio Unterfahrt Munich 10 March

  • Chris Potter quartet Porgy & Bess Vienna 12 March

  • Dave Holland trio Zig Zag Berlin 13 March

  • Pablo Held trio feat. Nelson Veras A-Trane Berlin 14 March

  • Scott Henderson Blue Note Milan 15 March

  • Big Chief Donald Harrison Le Duc des Lombards Paris 15 March

  • Richard Bona trio Fasching Stockholm 16 March

  • Big Chief Donald Harrison Bix Stuttgart 16 March

  • Ben LaMar Gay Ensemble Moods Zurich 20 March

The Lina Allemano 4 play Dublin tomorrow night. Photo: press

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Julian Lage, The Layers, Blue Note ****

The ultimate in a future utopian society where the only god properly accepted is music and in such an ideal world what you can gain most from a jazz recording for us is the answer ''yes'' to these questions: were you moved? Did you get healed? …

Published: 8 Mar 2023. Updated: 22 days.

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The ultimate in a future utopian society where the only god properly accepted is music and in such an ideal world what you can gain most from a jazz recording for us is the answer ''yes'' to these questions: were you moved? Did you get healed? Obviously everyone has something wrong with them (it's called the human condition) so if the latter, bingo - if you former, the road to the hall. Number four - knock on the door.

Do either of these phenomena happen here? No. But that does not invalidate what is obviously a fine record in aesthetic, delicately detailed harmonic and compositional terms that drives us on towards another top aspiration when - make the metaphorical leap as there are no vocals here - the singer becomes the song.

You don't need to know 2022's View With A Room which is similar (and marginally better) incidentally to grasp what's here. There is no sense of heated up alternate takes or the label milking the cow. Six originals from genius guitarist Julian Lage whose sound with the possible glimmer of an exception in the harmonic kindred chiming that you might encounter on a Jesse Harris song you won't hear anywhere apart from on the hq of a Lage record of which there are quite a lot already given the American was a child prodigy and the word got out about him ages ago. Here once again with old mucker bassist Jorge Roeder and the popular maverick Dave King (The Bad Plus) blending in highly collegiate fashion with the master Bill Frisell, the pick of the tracks in terms of the wonder of a universe created with a minimum of production ''bells and whistles'' is the organic cascading sense gained from 'This World' - one of several tracks streaming ahead of the full album's release. Out on St Patrick's Day. The Lage trio play Band on the Wall, Manchester, on 27 April. Julian Lage, photo: press