There’s nothing like an album that states its case on the first track, and with “Lisbon Stomp”, an early Keith Jarrett tune, Wolfgang Muthspiel’s “Tokyo” does just that. As with many of Jarrett’s tunes from this period, the jaunty lope of the melody is deceptive, leaving the musicians no structure to hide in when it comes to improvising. Here the counterpoint between the three musicians ebbs and flows in intensity, time travels through pockets of pulse here and there that rarely settle. Scott Colley in particular wriggles under the swing of Brian Blade’s drums as Charlie Haden often did with Motian, and it’s a refreshingly subtle listening experience, harking back to the great guitar albums of ECM in the 70s, 80s and 90s from Pat Metheny, Mick Goodrick, John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner. As an opening track, it’s a strong statement.
And yet it’s Muthspiel’s original compositions that steal the show for me: he has a way of coating some pretty chewy harmonies in charmingly simple melodies and rhythmic ideas. “Pradela” has an Abercrombie-ish directness in its theme, and both Colley and Blade at first respond with subtle coloration before moving into the lightest of grooves. It’s music that can wash over you, but there’s plenty of detail for those who listen more closely. “Flight” starts with Colley’s warm statement of the melody under Muthspiel’s chords with a melody that seems to drift from key to key before moving into a rhythmic figure and out again. It’s a catchy and emotive piece that manages to preserve a freedom of interaction in its long form. “Roll”, on the other hand, has a folk-tinged feeling of the campfire jam about it, a short ensemble blues emerging from a highly sampleable Brian Blade groove at its opening.
“Christa’s Dream” is a highlight for me, an absent-minded wander through a forest of tremolo-soaked guitar chords that occasionally fold back on themselves before moving on again as Scott Colley comments on the scenery from the bass. After a while we can’t remember where we started, and the surprise entry of what sounds like a guitar synth (but might be some deft pedal trickery) gives the piece a slightly eccentric edge before it abruptly ends. “Diminished and Augmented” is familiar nerd-speak to aspiring improvisers learning scales, but here such methodical methods inspire a series of playful exchanges between all the players and any technical pedantry is quickly forgotten.
“Traversia” walks on the edges of so-called “jazz harmony” but does so with such melodic ingenuity that we barely feel the tension: Muthspiel’s compositional imagination is refreshingly wide throughout. “Strumming” revels in exactly that: it’s hard not to feel Metheny’s influence here, but Blade’s masterful sound painting within the groove also carries it somewhere else, as does Muthspiel’s subsequent solo, which wails, at times, with an early Frisellian abandon as Colley prods from below. “Weill You Wait” has something of that composer’s lack of sentimentality and features another device that recurs throughout the album but is sometimes rare in jazz: a well thought out ending.
“Abacus”, the only other cover, by Paul Motian, is one of the drummer’s most distinctive melodies and here the group almost casually muse on the line itself before the entire piece opens out. There’s a sense of real relaxation here, and space is allowed to almost swallow the music whole while everyone seems to be trying things out in a genuine spirit of experimentation: it’s an effective way to close an album so generously stocked with nutritious melodies, dense harmonic structures and ensemble interaction of rare delicacy.
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