I’ve seen pianist/composer Tord Gustavsen twice, once in the trio format, and also last year in a quartet promoting his album The Well. Here, he’s using the sax of Tore Brunborg along with the team of Mats Eilertsen/b and Jarle Vespestad/dr and shows a greater depth of both dynamics and interplay on this collection of reflective moods.
A devout Christian, Gustavsen uses themes from spirituals and hymns, showing how music dedicated to the Eternal can reach even the most agnostic soul on a deep level. A trio take of “Right There” is contemplative and luminescent, and when Brunborg brings his reeds into the Norwegian hymn “A Castle In Heaven” rich sonorities and emotions mix richly. “Devotion” takes a vocal choir reading of ‘Alleluia’ and turns it into a thoughtful instrumental that swings like a heavenly gate, while Brunborg’s cantoral tenor on “Staying There” is like a rich testimony on a Sunday Morning. Music for sacred and secular enjoyment, as Gustavsen shows, there really is only one world, anyway.
ECM Records