Joe Lovano, Marilyn Crispell & Carmen Castaldi Trio Tapestry: Garden Of Expression LP

The debut album of Joe Lovano's Trio Tapestry was one of 2019's most talked-about releases. The trio's musical concept - the Boston Globe spoke of "utterances of hushed assurance, lyricism and suspense" - is taken to the next level on its second album, Garden of Expression, a recording distinguished by its intense focus.

Lovano, a saxophonist whose reach extends across the history of modern jazz and beyond, plays with exceptional sensitivity in Trio Tapestry. And the music he writes for this group - tenderly melodic or declamatory, harmonically open, rhythmically free, and spiritually involving - encourages subtle and differentiated responses from his creative partners. Joe describes their interaction as "magical." Carmen Castaldi's space-conscious approach to drumming further refines an improvisational understanding that he and Lovano have shared since the 1970s. The trio is also a wonderful context for Marilyn Crispell's solos, counter melodies, and improvisational embellishments, and her feeling for sound-color helps the chamber music character of the group to flower.

The details of the music are beautifully realized in this recording made in the highly responsive acoustics of the Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in Lugano and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Having played with legendary ECM artists in the past, including most notably Lee Konitz and Paul Motian, Lovano's work with Trio Tapestry feels like a continuation of that style of progressive, classical-influenced jazz and fittingly brings to mind the sound of ECM albums of the '70s and '80s. Tracks like 'Chapel Song,' 'Night Creatures,' and 'West of the Moon' have an impressionistic quality, evoking the dream-like compositions of Claude Debussy as Lovano floats against Crispell's rippling aquatic arpeggios. Equally enveloping is the title track, in which Crispell's far-eyed chords and Lovano's dusky tones conjure the '60s spiritual jazz of John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. What's also particularly compelling is just how important Castaldi's drumming is to the trio's overall sound. Unmoored by a bass instrument, Castaldi's buoyant, textural rhythms seem to suggest as much of a chordal center on any given song as Crispell's playing. This is especially true in the trio's more free-leaning moments, as on 'Dream on That' in which the drummer kicks off a rambling call-and-response improvisation that goes from starkly atonal to thickly frenetic and back again. Always at the center of the trio, however, is Lovano, whose warm, vocal-like tones and painterly phrases give the album the focused reverence and elevated emotionality of a church service.