Meadow – John Taylor, Tore Brunborg, Thomas Stronen
TOUR DATES
Glasgow Jazz Festival – Saturday 2nd July – Tron Theatre, Glasgow – 8pm
Brecon Jazz Festival – Sunday 14th August – Cathedral – 2pm
4 Date UK TOUR – 19th – 22nd Oct 2011 – Details to be announced soon!
WHAT THE CRITICS HAVE SAID ABOUT THIER ‘BLISSFUL IGNORANCE’:
“[Meadow] has produced one of 2011’s likely jazz triumphs of the year…worthy of ECM label’s greatest moments”. GUARDIAN **** (UK)
“This is an album of sublime creativity that will stand the test of time… they have created a classic”. JAZZWISE MAGAZINE (UK)
“Imagine the sound of saxophonist Wayne Shorter if he’d worked on a north-Euro ECM Records project, perhaps with the label’s legendarily restrained house-drummer Jon Christensen – then add one of Europe’s most sensitive and resourceful pianists, and you have something like this remarkable trio”. GUARDIAN ****
Meadow is three superb musicians… an assertively interactive group. The trio is in arresting form throughout”. IRISH TIMES *****
“An early contender for new trio of the year…Quite simply one of the most accomplished recordings by the Edition label thus far”. UK VIBE ****
“Vastly appealing…European Jazz at its most elegant”. MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS ***** (FIVE STARS)
“The success of Meadow and Blissful Ignorance is predicated in its focus on the song, the sound, the melody and the collective”. ALL ABOUT JAZZ
“Meadow deliver a classic in conception and in execution” FOCUS/ LE VIF (Belgium)
“Meadow are able to make almost-empty space seem eloquent. Tore Brunborg’s sinuous sax is supported by faint but urgent patterings from Thomas Stronen’s drums and perfectly placed enigmatic chords from pianist John Taylor”. TELEGRAPH (UK)
“Recorded at Rainbow Studios in Oslo, Meadow turns out to be more rhythmically varied than its ECM-type provenance might suggest… very pleasant”. INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY (UK)
“A blissful combination that brings together three of the most creative musicians in European jazz”. THE LIST (UK)
“Some new albums arrive with a bang and a great deal of hype and some just kind of creep up on you and surprise you… and before you know it, you’re in love with them” BBC RADIO 3 ‘JAZZ ON 3’
“What an absolute joy this trio disc is”. THE JAZZ BREAKFAST (UK)
“Boldly understated and yearning compositions”. THE SUNDAY HERALD
“An album filled with music that is frequently joyous and infused with a palpable sense of groove”. LONDON JAZZ BLOG
“Meadow have come up with a modern classic, contemporary yet timeless”. THE JAZZ MANN
TORE BRUNBORG
Tenor and soprano saxophones
Tore Brunborg first caught Britain’s ear in the mid-eighties when he toured with bassist Arild Andersen’s Masqualero. His front-line partner then was none other than Nils Petter Molvaer and the way Brunborg’s forthright, robust tenor combined with Molvaer’s more ambient approach still lingers in the memory. Since then, Brunborg has worked with artists as different and distinct in their approaches as Danish bassist-composer Bo Stief, Italian pianist Rita Marcotulli, Norwegian pianist-composer Jon Balke, drummer Billy Cobham, Manu Katche, Tord Gustavsen and master bassists Anders Jormin and Lars Danielsson. Brunborg has also led an outstanding trio with Anders Jormin and drummer Benita Haastrup, as well as his own Tore Brunborg Project again with Anders Jormin on bass, keyboard virtuoso Bugge Wesseltoft and drummer Jon Christensen. As well as playing saxophone with Meadow, Tore Brunborg has composed the majority of the group’s tunes for this session.
JOHN TAYLOR
Piano
If John Taylor’s main influence was Bill Evans, then he absorbed and transcended that influence early in his career. He is one of the most stylish of musicians with an amazing sense of harmony, texture and structure.
Taylor’s piano playing has graced some of the finest jazz records, most notably recordings by Harry Beckett, Alan Skidmore, John Surman, Pete Erskine and Kenny Wheeler. Taylor, his then partner singer Norma Winstone and Kenny Wheeler formed the legendary Azimuth in the early seventies and their influence is still widely felt today. Taylor recorded his first solo record, Pause, And Think Again, in 1971 and it remains one of the classics of the period. The veteran of countless ECM sessions, it was not until Rosslyn in 2003 that Taylor recorded in his own right for the label. That trio set with Joey Barron and Marc Johnson was everything one would have expected from this consummate artist.
THOMAS STRØNEN
Drums
Thomas Strønen is best known in the UK through his involvement with Iain Ballamy in the group Food. Now in their 11th year, the duo have recently celebrated this with the release of Quiet Inlet on ECM records. But Food, however essential to Strønen’s artistic sustenance, is just one aspect of his wide-ranging career to date. His Pohlitz project focuses both on solo percussion work and collaborations with the likes of McFall’s Chamber Quartet, while Humcrush with keyboardist Ståle Storløkken mixes rock, electronica and free jazz to powerful effect. Strønen works with pianists Maria Kannegaard and Bobo Stenson, bassist Mats Eilertsen as well as Nils Petter Molvær, Christian Fennesz and Sidsel Endresen. Meadow, with saxophonist Tore Brunborg and pianist John Taylor adds a fresh and new dimension to this amazing musician’s work.
Photo: C.F. Wesenberg
ALBUM: BLISSFUL IGNORANCE
Blissful Ignorance? Whoever brought these guys together in Oslo’s Rainbow Studios knew just what they were doing. Featuring three of Europe’s finest and most sensitive players, each one with countless recordings under their belt, Blissful Ignorance is a record that comes in many colours. By turns pastoral, elegiac, witty, romantic and forthright, it is surely one of 2010’s most accomplished recordings.
With our own John Taylor on piano one would hardly expect less. Just listen to his voicings and playful melody lines on the coyly unknowing title track, the well-chosen angularity of his work on Amentia and the thoughtful eloquence of his playing on the sombre Kirstis Tårer. Norwegian saxophonist Tore Brunborg composed seven of these nine tunes. He writes as he plays – with an absence of sentimentality and instead a mature restraint. But it never far from the surface either, lingering over a bitter-sweet memory on Tunn Is, in passionate reflection on Meadow and smiling through tears and gritted teeth on Will. There’s a devil-may-care, bruised machismo – I can put it no other way – about Brunborg that is immediately affecting.
That leaves master percussionist Thomas Strǿnen. How many times has he stunned British audiences with Food, the group he co-leads with Iain Ballamy. If the names Christensen and Motian mean anything to you, one listen will tell you why Strǿnen is their heir apparent. His introduction to Tunn Is is filled with dramatic foreboding, while his duet with Taylor on Amentia and playing on Taylor’s multi-hued Ritual provides a textbook of contemporary percussion.
If the group’s name suggests some kind of pastoral idyll, then so be it. But there’s no sentimentality or fey romanticism about Meadow or Blissful Ignorance. This music has the wisdom, honesty and vigour that is borne only of experience. Blissful Ignorance has its own sense of place, time and worth, able to seek and to soar but with the maturity to know what really matters. Blissful Ignorance – these guys have it sussed.
BLISSFUL IGNORANCE WILL BE RELEASED in FEBRUARY 2011
