Marilyn Crispell / Thommy Andersson / Michala Østergaard-Nielsen - The Cave (ILK Music, 2025)

By Eyal Hareuveni

Danish drummer-composer Michala Østergaard-Nielsen has a new trio with legendary American pianist Marilyn Crispell and Swedish double bass player Thommy Andersson (who has played with Yusef Lateef, Paul Bley, and Kenny Werner). The trio’s debut album, The Cave, was recorded during its first Scandinavian tour in 2022. Østergaard-Nielsen has led the Scandinavian supergroup Østergaard Art Quartet with Norwegian trumpeter Per Jørgensen, Danish trumpeter Kasper Tranberg, French guitarist Marc Ducret (who was born in Denmark), but is known for the jazz meets free-pop vocal ensembles Nuaia and David’s Angels.

Østergaard-Nielsen found deep affinity with Crispell’s lyricism, which, in its turn, was deeply influenced by her work with Swedish double bass player Anders Jormin (a collaborator of Østergaard-Nielsen). Crispell described the meeting with Jormin as a “life-changing, music-changing experience” and recorded two albums with him (the trio album Spring Tour, with drummer Raymond Strid, Alice Musik Produktion, 1995, and Jormin’s In Winds, In Light (ECM, 2004). Andersson, like Jormin, has a warm, rich sound that owes much to Swedish folk music. Østergaard-Nielsen completes the trio’s sonic palette with poetic, serene percussive touches.

Østergaard-Nielsen cleverly employs the “lyrical quality” that Crispell found in her meeting with Jormin and composed a set of six melodic compositions that allow generous degrees of freedom and two free improvisations. The Cave begins with the title piece, a hymn-like piece that Østergaard-Nielsen describes as “a quiet tribute to life, peace, and the silence that surrounds us”. It captures the poetic essence of the album and suggests a delicate balance between well-crafted, contemplative, and lyrical melody and spontaneous improvisation that evokes a rich, dream-like landscape.

On the following pieces, Crispell, Andersson Østergaard-Nielsen continue to weave poetic, collective sound, open and intuitive dynamics, and silence into an organic flow, always playing with the subtle tension between structure and freedom, and allowing a space where both can enrich each other, and often expand into uncharted territories. Pieces like “My Spirit Heart”, “Into the Light”, and “A Smile of a Butterfly” testify to the profound, immersive beauty of The Cave.