Espen Eriksen Trio Featuring Andy Sheppard In The Mountains

After five successful studio albums in 12 years, here is their first live album, by popular demand we should add. A very popular international concert attraction on several continents, the trio have constantly been asked when they will release a concert recording. And here it finally is, an hour's worth of melodic, melancholy magic. Five of the seven tracks were recorded live in concert at Oslo´s Nasjonal Jazzscene in 2018 and 2020, one at a special one-off intimate concert at Propeller Music Division in Oslo in 2020 and one in Poznan, Poland, in 2021. Six of the seven tracks are extended versions of Eriksen originals from four of the studio albums, adding instrumental vividness as well as dramatic and moving elements to the event. The seventh is a splendid cover of Krzysztof Komeda´s iconic Rosemary´s Baby. Andy Sheppard is guesting on three of the tracks, and another welcome twist is that only one of these are from the “Perfectly Unhappy” album he did with the trio, while the version of the title track from that album is featured here without Andy Sheppard.

The combination of Espen Eriksen Trio and UK saxophone giant Andy Sheppard is truly a match made in jazz heaven, or in the words of Andy: “I knew from the first time I heard the trio play that I would fit right in. I loved the melodic sense and vibe and was thrilled when I was invited to guest with the trio in London in 2016”. This led to the very popular and critically acclaimed Perfectly Unhappy album in 2018, and now we are proud to introduce As Good As It Gets, the quite brilliant follow-up. It´s fair to say that the new album finds the trio slightly more lively and sunny in parts, still highly melodic and lyrical, often with a typically Nordic melancholic signature (check the Grieg nod in album closer "Drifting Clouds"). Eriksen is a master of catchy tunes and when Sheppard adds his inimitable playing to the trio´s minimalistic approach, pure magic is created.

Espen Eriksen Trio was formed in 2007 and released their first album in 2010. Their music relies on highly melodic and lyrical instrumentals and a "less is more" approach and is often credited for its unique voice within today's jazz scene by the international press. The aptly named Perfectly Unhappy features eight new songs by the pianist, all written with this collaboration in mind. These are enchanting and lyrical tunes, often melancholic and uplifting at the same time and will surely speak to followers of both the trio and Sheppard and attract many new ones. With a career spanning over four decades, working together with the likes of George Russell and Gil Evans, Andy Sheppard is truly one of Europe's leading saxophonists. Lately, his main focus has been with his own quartet and the trio with living legends Carla Bley and Steve Swallow, both acts recording for ECM.

After the highly successful "Perfectly Unhappy" (2018) album with Andy Sheppard, the trio is back with a new album featuring seven brand new songs from the pianist. Captivating and lyrical, always melodic and often melancholic and uplifting at the same time, these are all real tunes.

Italian pianist Marcotulli's duets with British saxophonist Sheppard have been discreet gems which, in recent years, have occasionally been seen glittering around the jazz scene, and this set is a more faithful representation of that intimacy than the pair's more eclectic album, Koine, released four years ago. Marcotulli has lived in Scandinavia, and the ghostly, wistful long-note jazz of Jan Garbarek, Arve Henriksen and others has had an impact here. Sheppard's tone control and ability to do more with less has been an eloquent feature of his mid-life music, but a startling edginess often bursts out of it, in fierce split-notes or rumbling, upward-spiralling runs against slowly swaying piano figures. Waves and Wind appoints the piano (in Marcotulli's Jarrett-like incarnation) and the saxophone to play each role respectively, and Sound of Stone is an abstract wriggle through soprano figures and skittering percussion.