_{The Lundgren trio}

Attractive modern mainstream piano jazz with a southern Swedish folk lilt here from pianist Jan Lundgren, bassist Mattias Svensson, and drummer Zoltan Csörsz Jr recorded in Italy in November last year.

Beginning with the Jamal-esque ‘Parfait Amour’ Svensson comes through for a heartfelt bass solo as Lundgren and relatively new drummer the Sweden-based Hungarian Csörsz Jr on this mid-tempo opener comp. Lundgren, with his decorative grace notes and poise shows his romantic side as the title suggests he should.

We’re now pretty used to the Swedish sound in jazz especially going back to Bengt Hallberg, through Jan Johansson and of course Esbjorn Svensson and most recently Tingvall.

The folk element that Tingvall and Johansson explored emerges magically on Georg Riedel (the bassist on Jazz på Svenska) composition ‘Melancholia.’

Lundgren, a generation X-er born in Kristianstad 48 years ago debuted in the 1990s with Conclusion and has made a string of impressive modern mainstream albums, with his Swedish Standards albums selling especially well in his homeland bolstering his reputation.

The title track you can listen to below, has a rickety feel to it that brings to mind some of Dave Brubeck’s metrical experiments Lundgren’s rampaging left hand the catalyst while his right goes on all sorts of excursions tearing and pulling at the scale but always keeping a basic melodic tonality.

Elsewhere ‘Transcendence’ is looser and manages to allow Csörsz Jr, who took over from Morten Lund and appears too on 2009 release European Standards, a chance to lead the trio quite energetically. The album needs that new point of departure here making the sound that bit more connected with contemporary currents. Other material on Flowers of Sendai includes Richard Galliano’s ‘Waltz for Marion’, Paolo Fresu’s ‘Fellini’ and Strayhorn’s ‘Lush Life’ as well as originals by Lundgren including the title track of his 2013-released solo piano album Man in the Fog (also on French jazz label BeeJazz) at the end, plus a couple by Matthias Svensson.  Photo above: BeeJazz