Możdżer / Danielsson / Fresco
Polska
ACT ****
If you were taken by Leszek Możdżer’s modulating pointillist tour de force half way through ‘No Message’ on Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic I back in the spring, or the Polish pianist’s fine duo album with Walter Norris recorded again in the German capital but in the more intimate setting of A-Trane, then Polska is for you even if Możdżer’s musical personality is so outsize the trio setting still seems somehow tight-fitting. That’s partly solved, although not entirely, by the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra added on Hendrix’s ‘Are You Experienced’ at the end, the strings astutely arranged by the pianist. The trio, Możdżer with Swedish bassist/cellist Lars Danielsson, and Israeli percussionist/vocalist Zohar Fresco, have been together for quite a while and have already released The Time, Between Us and the Light, and a Live compilation album on the Outside Music label. All of these had their bright moments but this recording takes the trio’s artistry to a new level, the slightly distracting outer shell of born extroverts still there but everything is so much more nuanced. There’s still a slight air of melodrama to the trio usually provided by Danielsson’s hearty figures (his composition ‘Spirit’ is, though, really quite beautiful, an equal to his famous ‘Asta’ theme and the improvisations on the track a match). That feeling of heightened emotion is more calibrated than on the trio’s earlier albums and there’s an appealing melancholia and slight detachment instead in the right places. It’s the inner voice of Możdżer speaking at last.