Phronesis
Parallax

2016. Jazzwise: "The most exciting piano trio since Esbjörn Svensson Trio".

You can't just ignore it, at least... I can't ignore it reading such a definition, and after over 365 days of "let's put off until tomorrow what we can do today", for Christmas I finally gifted myself "Parallax", which reminds me of the famous "parallax errors", about which my chemistry teacher would consistently warn me, but which I would equally consistently commit, affecting my grades during assessments, but that's... another story!

This album, the sixth and penultimate in chronological order by "Phronesis", is certainly a jazz album, but not the classic jazz album.

There are a lot of extravagant elements, folk contaminations, classical technicalities, rock twists, all brought to life by a "piano trio" composed of the English and prolific composer, as well as saxophonist, Ivo Neame (piano), the Norwegian Anton Eger (drums), and the Dane Jasper Høiby (double bass).

Three tracks each (by Eger: "67.000 MPH"/"Rabat"/"Ayu", by Neame: "Ok Chorale"/"A Kite for Seamus"/"Manioc Maniac", by Høiby: "Stilness"/"A Silver Moon"/"Just 4 Now"), all recorded in one day at Abbey Road Studio, almost like a live concert, where they give their best, having fun, engaging and astonishing the audience.

They are indisputably talented, indeed extremely talented, but compared to the "Esbjörn Svensson Trio" I'm missing something, probably in terms of sensitivity and musical sharing.

Positive note: you can perceive the difference in writing between Neame, Høiby, and Eger (the one that personally meets my tastes the most in this album). Negative note: there is something finely, imperceptibly disconnected that doesn't make them perfectly attuned to my picky and nitpicky ear (forgive the francophone style). I try to explain better, so I say they are three extraordinary musicians exchanging excellent ideas, trying to involve each other and succeeding "only" for most of the 56' and 44" of the album and not for its entirety. "Phronesis," on the other hand, meant in ancient Greek "wisdom", but that wisdom that one could make available to others for the execution of a practical benefit. In light of this, one makes oneself available to the other for the creation of a high-quality CD, but which I probably find lacking the soul that I find in tracks like "Elevation of Love" or "When God Created the Coffee Break" by "E.S.T.".

"67.000 MPH" (the speed of Earth's rotation) is the opening to the world of "Parallax", bass theme, a crackling drum with cymbals struck in sixteenths, up to the Latin American element of the piano, while "Rabat," is the closure and the leading track in terms of structure and harmonic progression, a hammering piano opens up to the rhythmic interplay with the bass (quintuplets), until joining with the drums, which intervenes by hitting the snare drum hoop until it develops with folk rhythms that underline a percussive piano. The ending of "Ayu", almost with "power chords" of piano detached from bass phrases, provides a lot of energy, just like "Manioc Maniac", which reveals honky tonk interventions. Romanticism in "A Kite for Seamus", contemplation in "Stilness", while there are very interesting contrapuntal elements in "OK Chorale".

It is an album very rich musically and it is magnificent to say that in this album the pauses "play" and have an effect that genuinely creates amazement in the listener. Almost an hour of the highest musical level that flies by for a trained ear, a little less for those who nibble at jazz 'de temps en temps', but it is certainly an album created and conceived with a high degree of creativity and imagination.