| The spirit of creative play runs high throughout this trio's recorded songs and improvisations, where even the ten song titles are anagrams of 'change this song'.
What distinguishes the modern jazz of this Dutch piano trio is their highly individualistic (idiosyncratic?) and energetic approach to playing, improvising, and changing the song form.
In one track entitled, "Hatching Segno's", we find ourselves in a sparse New Music/Paul Bley space where Braam's sprinkling of treble notes are crossed by the horse hair whispers of DeJoode's bow and a piano's fadeout takes the piece out.
In the incredibly titled song, "Can Ghosts Neigh?", a kind of relaxed and impressionistic slice of Ellingtonia is experienced where piano, bass, and drums engage in a sober reminiscence and DeJoode's bass line notably changes from taut and digital to an emotionally soothing hearty-voiced arco.
Contrastingly, in "High Agons Scent" — somehow, it could be a Cecil Taylor title — Braam's keyboard leaps and jumps evoked signature aspects of Cecil Taylor while Vatcher's prodding thumps and cymbal crashes lightly defined an expanded sonic space.
This trio constantly references, and changes and expands and contracts, the available range of 'tradition to free sounds', such as the running bass line and swinging drums that encounter impetuous rhythms and blunt tonal shifts, but eventually end in melodic and tonal resolutions.
Trio BraamDeJoodeVatcher are literate and imaginative, hard-playing virtuosos playing their modern jazz songs.
by David Fujino — June 2009
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