Boundary-breaking, wild, virtuoso, lyrical – and dazzlingly beautiful! In the noble calendar of the record company ECM, the Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson is on the very first page, together with giants such as Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek. Stenson has been an invaluable part of the label’s fantastic success from the very beginning, and the collaboration with Garbarek in particular is one of the real cornerstones of modern jazz history.
In recent decades, Bobo Stenson has had a trio where he has tried out ideas both as a composer and as a communicator of other people’s music. Bassist Anders Jormin has been with him all the way, while Jon Fält took over the drum stool after Jon Christensen and Paul Motian around 2008.
A piano trio can be an entire orchestra. On Stenson’s latest release, Contra la indecición, Bobo’s own songs meet compositions by Bartók and Satie, which in the hands of fantastic musicians are transformed into sublime trio jazz. In sum, the Bobo Stenson Trio is a complex, varied and insanely convincing band.
Bobo Stenson – piano, Anders Jormin – doublebass, Jon Fält – drums
Bobo Stenson makes sublime piano-trio records without over-playing. It’s pulsating, with long improvised phrases; it’s alive.
– Ben Ratliff, The New York Times
Photo: Roberto Masotti / ECM Records
Time and place:
Saturday 13th May, 21:00, at Stavangeren
