Back 2 Basics / Thomas Clausen Trio (Vinyle LP)

Description

How Deep Is the Ocean? - Walkin' - Nature Boy - Bloodcount - It Could Happen To You - Edelweiss - Invitation - Vem kan segla förutan vind - You Must Believe In Spring - You And The Night And The Music Pianist Thomas Clausen, now 72, is no stranger to Danish jazz history. He has played a significant role in its development since he arrived on the scene in the early 1970s. Over the decades that followed, he was a member of important bands and honed his skills as a composer, working for big bands, choirs, chamber music, and musicals. At this stage in his career, there are few genres he hasn't tried his hand at. He played bebop with Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin. He rode the fusion wave for Miles Davis's last album released during his lifetime. He collaborated with vibraphonist Gary Burton. He led and recorded with his Brazilian quartet... The Thomas Clausen Trio is a Danish jazz institution. In its first iteration with Niels Henning Ørsted Petersen and Aage Tanggaard in the 1980s, the young pianist earned his stripes. In 2006, he formed his fourth (and current) trio with bassist Thomas Fonnesbæk and drummer Karsten Bagge. It was that same year that BACK TO BASICS was released - an album celebrating the legacy of the classic jazz piano trio with a repertoire of standards. 15 years later, Clausen gives us BACK 2 BASICS - with the same team of swingers whose collective identity has only strengthened over time. Clausen doesn't waste time or emotional energy wondering if the music is modern or old-fashioned. In his own words, he is "more interested in quality - if it sounds good and if it swings. I can go from a Debussy to Ellington... take a chord from one of them or from Bill Evans. For me, there's no distance between them: I create my own synthesis." This recording was made during a lockdown period, when Copenhagen Radio Jazz and the Ben Webster Foundation opened the MillFactory Studios for a series of small concerts. Without an audience, of course, but the enthusiasm was definitely there. "We recorded on the large Steinway D, which has extremely long bass strings and so much depth in the treble register that you don't need to play many notes. You can feel every note sing. The music was recorded as if it were a real concert, with the songs in the precise order I had planned and in the same order as they are presented on the album." Thomas Clausen, Thomas Fonnesbæk, and Karsten Bagge are extremely comfortable with the trio format. Piano, bass, drums, and some good standards... performed and reimagined by three musicians capable of listening to each other and exploring together. All the tracks on the album are p