Colin Vallon Trio Rruga (2011)

This is the second ECM album from the Colin Vallon Trio. Like the wind celebrated in its title track, the group has a subtle, insinuating power. Emerging from a still and silent place, its music can breathe gently, or steadily build pressure until attaining an eruptive forcefulness. This combining of poetic compression and quiet relentlessness was evident on the ECM debut Rruga three years ago, but with leader Vallon now writing almost all of the repertoire (although opening tune “Juuichi” is by Patrice Moret), and new drummer Julian Sartorius detailing its floating rhythms, the Swiss trio has entered a brave new space where touch and inflection are decisively more important than soloistic gesture. Melodies, unfolding slowly, are shared between Moret’s bass and Vallon’s piano. A fresh group language is being developed here, extended in the group improvisations which close the set.

"Rruga" meaning path, road or journey in Albanian, is the evocative title of this ECM debut by the trio of pianist Colin Vallon, bassist Patrice Moret and drummer Samuel Rohrer. After shared musical experiences on the Swiss jazz scene, they began their trio journey and have grown into one of Europe’s most promising bands, shaping a rugged and individual music, inspired by songs and singers, by the music of the Caucasus region as well as by the jazz tradition. Challenging conventions of the modern jazz piano trio, the instrumentalists meet on equal terms as the music is created, arranged and developed collectively.

There was a time when jazz musicians were commonly recruited to play on pop records, because their purview was so broad that they could mold themselves into any context. Elina Duni's music may not be jazz by conventional definition, but its improvisational spirit clearly occupies the broader "jazz state of mind" to which the Albanian-born/raised and now Swiss-resident singer refers to in the press sheet to Matanë Malit, her third release as a leader, and first for ECM.