Tangling With London Tycoon

The 34-year-old Bergen-born tenor/soprano saxophonist-composer Marius Neset presents his new recording Viaduct and makes his boldest, most restlessly diverse statement to date. On his fifth album for leading European label ACT, Neset organically integrates a wide-ranging, colourful kaleidoscope of influences with his compelling compositions/arrangements for a pair of extended suites. Originally commissioned for the opening concert of the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in 2018, Viaduct offered Neset a fantastic opportunity to reunite his regular top-notch Brit-Scandi jazz quintet with world-class 19-piece London Sinfonietta, having initially performed together for his 2016 ACT release Snowmelt.

This release is part of an eight-disc series by the small historical-instrument ensemble London Baroque, covering the entire history of the trio sonata in four countries (Italy, Germany, France, and England) over two centuries (17th and 18th). The series is more aimed at those with a strong interest in Baroque instrumental music than at general listeners, but several of them have been attractive for anyone, and this album falls into that group. It might well have come first in a chronological series, for it includes the very first works that might be called trio sonatas, the Sonata a tre of Giovanni Cima, published in 1610, and the Sonata a tre secuondo tono, from 1621.