Subtitled, somewhat ungrammatically, “Plays The Music of OP & NHØP”, The Touch offers tribute to two of the finest ever in jazz from two of the best in contemporary modern-mainstream jazz in Denmark.
I don’t understand quite what bassist Fonnesbaek intends by the adjective “classical” when he tells us that this is “our idea of how the music of OP and NHØP can be played today – classical music – but improvised!” Shades of Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, I guess.
Whatever: The Touch should appeal strongly to those who hold that, no matter what the era, to be jazz, things have to swing. Kristiansen doesn’t quite have the simultaneously crisp and milky touch and sprung rhythms of Peterson in his pomp. How could he? But he’s an excellent, fleet and dynamically aware player. Equally, Fonnesbaek – pizzicato throughout – is a most accomplished bassist who remains a touch short of the india-rubber suppleness and sumptuous tone cultivated by NHØP. Again, how could (or indeed, should) it be otherwise?
Aficionados may regret the absence of one or another cherished piece. And given that the gospel power of Hymn To Freedom, which ran to over five minutes on Peterson’s Night Train, is distilled here into some two or so minutes, it would have been nice had the time gained gone into a take on a classic piece of “Danish folk-jazz” such as I Skovens Dybe Stille Ro – which Pedersen recorded with both Kenny Drew – on the 1973 Duo – and Peterson, on the 1998 This Is All I Ask.
A personal favourite, You Look Good To Me, is absent – but the wonderful, ever-building Nigerian Marketplace is here. Further pleasures include the now poised, now perky finger-popping grooves of On The Trail and driving power of On Danish Shore as well as the diversely flowing and meditative Love Ballad, Night Child and Wheatland.
Discography
Soft Winds; Nigerian Marketplace; On The Trail; Love Ballade; Night Child; On Danish Shore; Wheatland; There Is No Greater Love; Hymn To Freedom (52.18)
Kristiansen (p); Fonnesbaek (b). Copenhagen, 3-4 May 2021.
Storyville 1014347
