Tord Gustavsen wows Triskel with soulful gig

By Alan O'Riordan

After almost a decade working in larger ensembles, Tord Gustavsen has made a return to the trio, the format in which he first made his name. Based on this performance, it’s also the format that allows the ECM artist’s genius to shine most brightly.

Opening the evening is ‘O Traurigkeit’, one of the pristine interpretations of Bach’s choral music that appears on Gustavsen’s new album, The Other Side. There’s nothing doleful about Bach’s lament in the Norwegian’s hands as he slows down and opens up its intricate melodies, summoning them amid rumbling piano chords, the atmospheric arco bass playing of

Sigurd Hole, and the controlled drumming of his longtime collaborator Jarle Vespestad.

Later, the album’s title track begins with a slow yet catchy theme that soon opens far beyond the parameters of the studio recording, bass drums gathering like thunder clouds on the tune’s horizon before the lyrical clarity of the piano reemerges.

Elsewhere, an as-yet-untitled tune becomes, between piano and bass, a kind of 21st-century chamber piece — soulful, yet cerebral; playful, but controlled.

An evening of exquisitely textured music ends with another elaborate Bach suite. Music like this is what happens when the improvisational sensibility turns toward the European musical tradition.

In Gustavsen’s hands, it’s a mine of musical inspiration as rich as that upon which the great American jazz tradition rests.