DDD 62:99

Musicians are not always the best people to write about music. We write and play the music we love, and often that is enough.  What else, dear listener, can I tell you, and what would you like to know?

I met Paul in 1993 and Ole in 1995, both in the UK.  Paul and I were both resident there at that time.  Ole, a native Dane, was a temporary resident in Cambridge.  We decided to tour as a trio, and we’ve never looked back.  Tours of Denmark and the UK, three – now four – CD recordings on the ZahZah label, and fans all over the world have been the result.  Above all, a distinctive and strong sound, a unique body of high-quality melodic material, and a lyrical, often witty approach to jazz have characterised our work. ‘Thoughtful, intelligent, romantic’, said one critic (from Cadence magazine).

Paul, half Italian, a thinker and a doer, is a drummer who can burn a groove to a crisp. He plays piano as well as drums, is a great pedagogue, and composes; his Finding A Way is the third composition of his to appear on the trio’s CDs.  Ole, the Dane, lyrical and swinging, brings to the trio warmth, the warmth of the earth on a sunny day, a bass sound you feel as much as hear. And he is the consummate soloist.  I – English, but from Russo-Polish origins – play gypsy and tango music, I play harpsichord, and I spend a lot of my time writing – all of which help to inform my activities as jazz pianist.   As often as not, one of us is living and/or working in the US, so we are a trans-Atlantic as well as a pan-European trio.  Fortunately, with music as our second language, we always manage to communicate.

Music has a way of complexifying, and we spend a lot of our time undoing needless complexity.  If it has to be complex, we try to make it sound simple.  How?  Through song and dance – melody and groove – and through referring to our roots: folk (that is, people) music, Latin music, baroque music, European music, music in 3-time.  (3-time was regarded by medieval musicians as perfect.)  I’ve brought most of the musical material to the group, but it’s been carefully refined and moulded by the three of us.  We try to avoid unnecessary technicality, and to avoid note spinning.  That’s it!

Revised Thursday November 27 2008