Trespass Trio feat. Susana Santos Silva - Live in Oslo (Clean Feed, 2023)

By William Rossi

This album is, in a way, timeless, in the sense that it sounds like something you might happen upon while rummaging through a box of old records you found in an attic. It's an album that could have come out any year over the last 60 but, though my reviews and this blog as a whole often focus on the more "forward thinking" and explosive side of jazz, it doesn't mean that there isn't value in making something that could be considered safe or traditional.

All of the tracks on this release, save for one, follow the tried and true jazz formula: a theme, an improv session and a reprise of the theme to close out the piece, with Portuguese trailblazer trumpeter Susana Santos Silva bringing some modern edge to the Swedish/Norwegian Trespass Trio's otherwise old-school sound.

Like jazz albums of old the album lives and dies by the wonderful melodies from saxophonist Martin Küchen, accompanied and embellished by Santos Silva's trumpet: the dusty 'A Desert on Fire, a Forest,' the almost Morricone-esque tinges on 'The Spirit of Pitesti' and the ever-winding 'In Tears,' all brilliant in their own right are supported by a rock solid rhythm section, with Per Zanuss' bass always propelling the pieces forward, be it with counterpoint to the melodies, arpeggios, stoic ostinatos or walking lines, and Raymond Strid's tastefully atmospheric and dynamic drumming guiding the pieces through peaks and valleys of intensity.

While the first half of the album is pretty consistent in terms of mood and tempo the band keeps things fresh with A Different Koko's ferocious walking bass, constant tempo and meter changes from the drums and rapid fire call and response between Küchen's sopranino sax and Santos Silva's trumpet; a piece where all musicians can flex their chops, excite the audience and, most importantly, show off their synergy as a band, Santos Silva never skipping a beat and always delivering some of the best material on the release despite being a guest. 

 

The follower 'Sounds & Ruins' introduces some more elements of the jazz tradition with a nicely swung rhythm (absent from the album up to this point) and some hints of the blues in its theme and improvised solos while constantly ramping up the intensity of the playing before arriving at the closer, the aforementioned 'In Tears'.which perfects the formula of the first two pieces by showcasing perhaps the album's most beautiful melodies and engaging improvisations; a somber piece yet full of energy, urgency and joy for making music.

The press release for the album describes Trespass Trio's pieces as "mournfully cinematic creepers", a perfect description I could never have come up with, but their music is so much more: it's inventive, beautiful and able to perfectly bend the jazz tradition to best serve their compositions, throw in Santos Silva's eclectic and inspired playing and you get a varied, well played album of pieces that, while not reinventing the wheel, are engaging and endlessly relistenable.

Out digitally and on CD by Clean Feed: