With Cirklar, the Tingvall Trio, having received numerous awards, present their fifth studio album since the founding of the trio in 2003 alongside the live album "In Concert" from 2013. The cast of the Tingvall trio residing in Hamburg has remained constant over the years with the Swedish pianist Martin Tingvall, the Cuban contrabassist Omar Rodriguez Calvo and the German drummer Jürgen Spiegel. Another noteworthy constant is that all the predominantly melodious compositions performed by this jazz trio come from Martin Tingvall, who regularly backs out to the productive silence of his southern Swedish home town Snarestad. The pieces on Cirklar circulate around stories that life wrote, about very individual experiences of Martin Tingvall, such as experiences with his children. The listener, who is primarily concerned with music, and perhaps with the mood in which it was created, may be less interested in the personal background of the music than in its expression and in the quality of making music. And the new Tingvall album is overflowing therewith - not unlike its predecessors exuding highest improvisational art in typical, unmistakable Tingvall sound, shimmering between progressive and catchy jazz.
"Evighetsmaskinen" is a typical Tingvallian work mirroring as a microcosm the virtues of the trio embracing tremendous playfulness and nurturing a distinct sound. The piano refinedly builds up simple melodies to modify them modestly in an exceedingly lively and very fresh manner. Nordic melancholy now and again attracts attention. Quietly the song dies away. A masterpiece of jazz. What a trio!
Anyone who expected "Skånsk Blues" being a heartbreaking blues, coming along melancholically in the kind as originally practiced at the Mississippi Delta and at Chicago, will learn to be completely wrong. A "blues" can hardly be intoned and passed through more life asserting than in this case. Maybe this is the Scandinavian way of singing the blues preferred by the Tingvall Trio in Cirklar. In the title song, the bass has the opportunity to a detailed solo, which is a rather rare event for the Tingvall Trio preferring the habitus of attaching importance to a continuous flow of music. The short "Det Gröna Hotellet" acts gloomy and sufficiently melancholic like a Scandinavian counterpart of the Chicago blues. "Tidlös" exudes sheer optimism very well blatantly served by the piano. In "Karusellen" we find the trio in a very good mood after a thoughtful, rather introverted "psalm", even in a decided champagne mood. Ultimately, Cirklar culminates in "Elis Visa", whose untroubled, graceful melody is presented by the trio loosely and easily just like a top chef presents as the last course of a masterfully successful menu, an airy soufflé. We can look forward to what the team of the formidable Tingvall Trio, under the guidance of his top chef Martin Tingvall will present as next delicious menu.
Tingvall Trio