Seeing is Tord Gustavsen’s 11th album. Gustavsen released his debut album Changing Places 21 years ago and in many respects Seeing is a revisit of his musical id, one in which Gustavsen and his trio weave a spellbinding musical tour. There are clues in the track names that lead one to suspect that Gustavsen may be a deeply religious person. But even an old sinner such as yours truly is happy to worship at the church where Gustavsen’s trio conduct a sermon from the land of the fjords.
Gustavsen’s albums tend to be a feast for the audiophile ear, and this one is no exception, while one may decry and bemoan the lack of ECM’s ability to produce a higher resolution version of their releases, one must salute the quality of the recording. Even in its 44.1/16 red book form it still creates an image that is tall, deep and wide. The background noise levels are non-existent and the recording captures the energy created by the trio in a manner that most fail to do.
Seeing consists of 10 short tracks, it runs for just under 44 minutes. There is a sense of very pleasant déjà vu in this album, in many ways it feels like a companion to Gustavsen’s The Ground and Being There albums that were released in 2005 and 2007, respectively.
The musical style could be considered jazz, but I prefer to describe it as a modern European music. It is heavily influenced by the likes of Bach and traditional church hymns of yesteryear, but equally inspired by flamenco, tango, and folk music.
The Trio is made of Tord Gustavsen (piano), Steiner Raknes (double bass) and Jare Vaspestad (drums). The intimacy and sheer scale of emotions that they create needs to be heard to be believed. Seeing is an inspiring effort, a true tour de force, a great album and a perfect one at that with which to discover the enduring appeal of Tord Gustavsen.
Best track: Seattle
Reuben Klein