Piano trios represent something like the quintessence of classical music. This is essentially also the case for jazz, which, however, provides for a casting of piano with bass and percussion. The trios with Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans are regarded as the veterans of this genre of ensemble. In more recent and in recent times, the trios with Keith Jarrett and Esbjörn Svensson are among the stars of this genre of ensemble. Apart from them, there are to be heard on the podium of jazz clubs and from recordings nearly countless other piano trios providing a more or less independent sound and a more or less convincing concept. Being standalone is at least a hallmark of the trio, which has been playing since 2014 around the bassist Gary Peacock, who besides the drummer Jack DeJohnette previously belonged to the core team of the Keith Jarrett Trio and who made his first trio experiences with Bill Evans in the mi sixties. With more than 65 years of experience in jazz formations of various kinds, the eighty-two-years old Gary Peacock, who began as a pianist, belongs to the genus of the largely extinct species of the dinosaurs among the active jazz playing musicians. Compared to him, the twenty-years younger drummer of his trio Joey Baron can almost be regarded as youngster, while the pianist Marc Copland takes the middle position in the trio's age pyramid. All three musicians are highly regarded avant-garde jazz musicians with an unmistakable profile as can be already heard on the first ECM album of the Gary Peacock Trio "Now This" which has been released in 2015. Even though the new album has been recorded only in the third year of existence of the piano trio, this does not mean that its members have not known been known to one another for a long time: The pianist and the drummer did work together on Abercrombie's "Up and Coming", while Peacock and the pianist did work together in trio formations with the drummers Paul Motian and Bill Stuart, respectively.

Of the eleven pieces assembles on "Tangents", Peacock is responsible for five, Baron for two and Copland for one. One piece ("Empty Forest") is a joint work of the three. The rest comes from Miles Davis ("Blue in Green") and Alex North ("Spartacus). As this is part of a collaborative work, "Empty Forest" is a freely improvised mix of the different composition styles of the members of the Trio. Peacock's "Rumblin" clearly shows that Peacock does not belong to the old iron despite his advanced age, otherwise he could not deliver his solo on this piece with such a juvenile fire. Not only "Empty Forest", but also the other pieces on the album "Tangents" are true masterpieces of free improvisational art, an art which testifies to the life experience of high-caliber musicians, and which is worth to enjoy the album several times one after the other with increasing delight. This is very big cinema, which anyway makes some of the current trio albums of other ensembles look a little bit pale.

Great cinema is once again the art of the ECM team, to produce perfect recordings, which not only set the performance of the artists in the right light, but understand to super elevate this performance to a certain extent, whereby a musically complete work is achieved, unrivalled in its coherence. So also in the case of "Tangents" recorded in Lugano, which has beens produced by the master, by Manfred Eicher himself, and for which Stefano Amerio of the Italien radio station RSI Rete due is technically responsible for the sound.

Gary Peacock, double-bass
Marc Copland, piano
Joey Baron, drums