Jakob Bro, Thomas Morgan, Joey Baron Streams

180g Vinyl LP Reissue!
On his second leader album for ECM – following on from the prizewinning Gefion – Danish guitarist Jakob Bro continues to refine his trio project, with its emphases on melody, sound, space, layered textures and interaction. The rapport between Bro and Thomas Morgan (Bro calls him “my musical soul mate”) has become something extraordinary, and often guitarist and bassist develop improvisational ideas in parallel. There’s an historical aptness, too, in the choice of Joey Baron as the band’s new drummer, for Bro first encountered Morgan when the bassist was playing in Baron’s band a decade ago… On Streams Joey Baron dives into the music’s detail with obvious pleasure. This recording features five new Bro pieces: “Opal”, “Full Moon Europa”, “Shell Pink”, “Sisimiut” and “Heroines” (heard in both a trio version and a particularly lovely solo version). Completing the album’s repertoire is the freely improvised “PM Dream”, dedicated to the late Paul Motian. Jakob’s approach to melody acknowledges the influence of Motian, and both Bro and Morgan played in the late drummer’s ensembles . Recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in November 2015 and produced by Manfred Eicher, Streams is issued on the eve of a major tour by the Bro-Morgan-Baron trio with dates in Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Ukraine and South Korea.
"Danish guitarist Jakob Bro creates magical music, impossible to categorize or capture. The songs on ‘Streams’ are best described as jewels revolving in mid-air, reflecting and refracting light. […] The beauty of ‘Streams’ is in its unknowingness, its sense of wonder and possibility." - Ken Micallef, Downbeat
"The Danish guitarist Jakob Bro is becoming more and more a fixture of the European jazz guitar [...] Bro's companions act extremely restrained, so that the melodies can dig into the listener's synapses undisturbed. More than ever, Jakob Bro convinces with barren beauty, behind which his role models Bill Frisell and Eivind Aarset are disappearing more and more. A wonderful, dignified and yet completely innocent album." - Wolf Kampmann, Eclipsed
"His second recording for Manfred Eicher’s ECM label is another trio recording, again with the hugely impressive Thomas Morgan on bass and, this time, Joey Baron replacing Jon Christensen on drums. It’s an inspired substitution, with Baron’s rare combination of invention and restraint – reminiscent of Paul Motian, to whom the album’s third track is dedicated – providing the perfect underpinning to Bro’s plangent, echoing lines. Mournful, beautiful, dark yet luminous music for Beckett fans." - Cormac Larkin, Irish Times
"The Auqarellist has further condensed his playing skills among the guitarists on ’Streams'. Just a few swabs are enough to create sound images of the greatest beauty." - Karl Gedlicka, Concerto
"Nothing is in a hurry in this beguiling music full of soul and depth, which builds on melody and opens up spaces. How the lines of Bro and Morgan intertwine is without comparison like almost everything on this album, which sets its own standard within the guitar Renaissance." - Ulrich Steinmetzger, Leipziger Volkszeitung
"For all the guitarist’s fondness for understatedly conversational north European jazz-making, this trio is a highly melodic and unpredictably dramatic outfit. The gently weaving ‘Heroines’ is as open as a pop ballad in its ringing guitar line, solicitously escorted by Thomas Morgan’s supple bass and Baron’s patterings and cymbal tingles (Bro repeats it later as an unaccompanied solo). And the Paul Motian dedication ‘PM Dream’ – a collective-improv adventure initiated by Motian admirer Baron – grippingly begins in palpitating long tones, bass urgings and snare-drum twitches before becoming metallic, electronic and intense. […] This is far from guitar-hero music, but it’s full of laid-back character." - John Fordham, The Guardian
"The meandering sound streams in ‘PM Dream‘, the ’Full Moon Europa‘ reminiscent of Monteverdi, the charming folk waltz ’Shell-Pink‘, the interval jumps in the final ’Sisimut' - all forays into wide spaces of fantasy that exude an almost hypnotic effect." - Karl Lippegaus, Fono Forum
"A simply stunning collection from one of the most brilliantly unassuming ensembles operating today." - Spencer Grady, Jazzwise
"Another subtly textured piece of sonic sculpture designed by the Danish guitarist. He’s maintained his close relationship with the bassist Thomas Morgan and, to complete the snug effect, he’s brought in Morgan’s longtime associate Joey Baron on drums. The largely improvised programme, based on Bro’s tunes, is an exercise in restraint." - Garry Booth, BBC Music Magazine
"As attentive as the musicians interact, as smooth as their sound spaces intertwine, the trio is so intent on contrast, on roughness, on deconstruction. [...] No one in this trio wants to play themselves in the foreground. The band sees itself more as a living organism" - Rainer Schlenz, SWR 2
"This is a particularly gentle recording […] Its soothing sound has both an immediate appeal and an insinuating depth." - Peter Bevan, Northern Echo
"Already in the very first tones she is stuck again. This magic in the calm and in the gentle power with which each note is subtly played out in the harmoniously fine net, ends and thus becomes a true treasure. And despite all the apparent fragility and tenderness, there is always a tremendous tension that will not subside for seven pieces" - Guido Fischer, Jazz Aesthetics
"Another subtly textured piece of sonic sculpture designed by the Danish guitarist. He’s maintained his close relationship with the bassist Thomas Morgan and, to complete the snug effect, he’s brought in Morgan’s longtime associate Joey Baron on drums. The largely improvised programme, based on Bro’s tunes, is an exercise in restraint." - Garry Booth, BBC Music Magazine
"Bro’s compositions are panoramic, with tones at once sedate and ever shifting. His skillful echo and reverb weave a thrumming surface, upon which the musicians evince a delicate chemistry. Sometimes the sound will push into tense, eruptive territory, as on ‘Full Moon Europa’, which evolves from Morgan and Bro’s single-note unison pluckings to blistering guitar exhortations goaded by Baron’s all-over the kit assaults." - Matt R. Lohr, Jazz Times
"Bro has a lovely sparse style, able, like Baron, to stay true to his specific personality over a wide range of sounds and moods, from almost pop-like simplicity, through misty, slipping and sliding nuance to free distortion. He is thoughtful without ever sounding overly introspective. And between them stands Morgan. What a truly great bassist this studious-looking young man is turning out to be. I reckon he’s the rightful heir to Charlie Haden’s bass throne. He has that ability to walk a stately line, always bursting with melodic strength, always bang on, always making all those around him sound even better than they already do. And appearing to be so simple and straightforward, yet fresh and original. Just like Charlie. ‘Streams’ is brimming with beautiful tunes and rippling, swirling grooves, all exquisitely balanced and every track achieving that so hard to define just-rightness. This is a quiet masterpiece of an album" = Peter Bacon, Jazz Breakfast
"This music is delicate, it breathes and, with its calm intensity, is able to keep even a noisy mind attentive. The Danish guitarist loves the delicate tones, which he condenses into a sound that becomes music in interaction with two other outstanding instrumentalists. Her virtuosity, which is particularly evident in the reduction, nevertheless fades into the background. The trio seems more captivating as an organism, which keeps its activity awake with the most subtle interjections and glowing nuances, illuminates the edges, sets focused things in motion and thus enables flow." - Pirmin Bossart, Jazz'n'More
"The Danish guitarist, on his second album as leader for ECM, pushes the virtues of texture and purity to the point of sometimes verging on a surprising self-ettacement: these strings touched in a soft whisper around the rhythmic axis on 'Shell Pink', for example. [...] Beautiful as the rain on the sea." - Bertrand Rouard, Jazz Magazine

Features:

• 180g Vinyl
• Audiophile High Quality Pressing
• Recorded at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes les Fontaines, November 2015
• Made in Germany