Story Ave

Although one might be able to think of a dozen or more Christmas albums issued in the era of LPs considerable as being "Classics" of Yuletide fare on record, not very many CDs have come along so far that are truly worthy of such distinction.

Four years after “Cantando”, a new album from the Bobo Stenson Trio – recorded in Lugano last December – explores a broad arc of material. Here we find: free playing (the trio has its own, fresh approach to collective improvising), tunes by Bill Evans (“Your Story”, offered here as a tribute to Paul Motian, for whom this tune was a favourite) and by George Russell (“Event VI” from “Living Time”, another piece associated with Evans), Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s “Oft Am I Glad”, a Norwegian hymn (in an arrangement by Anders Jormin and folk singer Sinikka Langeland), contemporary composition by Norway’s Ola Gjeilo, a Wolf Biermann protest song, Argentine composer Ariel Ramírez’s folkloric “La Peregrinación”, and more. Wide-ranging repertoire has become a hallmark of Bobo Stenson recordings. But it’s not just the eclecticism that is striking.