Saxophonist Christian Holm-Svendsen and his trio have stories to tell. They are mostly reassuring and formally circumscribed: they have beginnings, middles and ends; and they now and then take the listener to troubled places, but never leave them there awaiting rescue.
Maybe it’s the chamber-music style fostered by Holm-Svendsen, drummer Daniel Sommer and bassist Mariusz Praśniewski that encourages the listener to be quietly attentive. The saxophonist’s light-narrative compositions are performed in a style far removed from piano-less sax trios of renown, which had their own agendas, often to do with liberating the reed instrument from the chord-bound keyboard.
We have to wait until the final track on this album, with its boppish title of Ba Da Da Di, before the image of these older trio formats arises as a reminder of how a familiar idiom has been subverted. December is a jolly perimeter dance in waltz time but the journey into the woods, as such expeditions often are, becomes more unsettled. Holm-Svendsen plays soprano sax on Vind Og Vejr, with Praśniewski, as elsewhere, its strong contrapuntal presence, and Sommer’s drumming as light as air and given to only minor turbulence.
This voyage to a darker realm continues with Dvale, in which the previous track’s feeling of a lament becomes almost funereal, hushed by understated drumming. Vent is a leisurely chart indulging nostalgia and Duo is a short, almost melancholic, duet for clarinet and bass. Sun breaks through the clearing on the title track, and there’s an urgency about the tale-telling on 5 Foot 4. They frame Per Aspera Ad Astra, a charming, slow melody on which bass and drums share Holm-Svendsen’s role as lead narrator. The three are all in it together.
Discography
December; Vind Og Vejr; Dvale; Vent; Duo; Totem; Per Aspera Ad Astra; 5 Foot 4; Ba Da Da Di (39.28)
Holm-Svendsen (ts, ss, cl); Mariusz Praśniewski (b); Daniel Sommer (d). Copenhagen, 8-9 May 2023.
April Records APRI30CD
