Mathias Eick’s intensely melodic trumpet occupies the centre-stage in this album of self-penned tunes which will appeal to an audience beyond “jazz”. Against the powerful backdrops offered by his sleek, modern band, driven by two drummers, he delivers richly lyrical soliloquies. Although regarded as a 'jazz' album by virtue of its instrumentation (trumpet, saxophone, rhythm section, plus occasional harp and keyboards), trumpeter Mathias Eick 's second ECM recording as leader is as likely to draw inspiration for his fluent, accessible compositions from pop and classical music as from jazz.
True, Jan Garbarek's 'plaintive cry' is cited as among the sources of one of the album's most striking pieces, 'Edinburgh' (Tore Brunborg featured on tenor), but other tunes have their sources in rock music: 'Oslo', for example, is discernibly influenced by Radiohead's trademark melancholic soar over assertively scurrying drums; 'Joni' nods to the great Candian singer/songwriter via the sincerest form of flattery by using her hypnotically compelling, long-lined verse structure – centred on Andreas Ulvo's rolling piano – as the basis for one of the album's standout tracks.
Eick's trumpet style relies, in his words, on an attempt to 'create a tone that was a mix of all the sounds I loved' (among his trumpet models are Kenny Wheeler, Chet Baker and Tomasz Stanko), and there is indeed a haunting purity in everything he plays, particularly when set, as in the album's closer, 'Epilogue', against the vigorous drumming of Torstein Lofthus.
There are moments on this attractive, immediately appealing album when a ravishing soundscape (cf. another recent ECM album featuring Brunborg, Manu Katché's Third Round) cannot quite compensate for the lack of two of jazz's (arguably) defining features, grit and unpredictability, but overall, Eick admirers will find Skala irresistibly seductive.
01. Skala
02. Edinburgh
03. June
04. Oslo
05. Joni
06. Biermann
07. Day After
08. Epilogue
Mathias Eick: trumpet, vibraphone, guitar, bass;
Tore Brunborg: tenor saxophone
Andreas Ulvo: piano
Morten Qvenild: keyboards
Audun Erlien: electric bass
Torstein Lofthus: drums
Gard Nilssen: drums
Sidsel Walstad: harp
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