The debut album of Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry was one of 2019’s most talked-about releases. This musical concept 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. 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, creating interactions in which Lovano describes as „magical.“ Carmen Castaldi’s space-conscious approach to drumming further refines an improvisational understanding that he and Lovano have shared since the early 1970s. The trio is also an inspired context for Marilyn Crispell’s solos, counter melodies, and improvisational embellishments. Her feeling for sound-color helps the chamber music character of the group bloom.
A steady artistic growth can be charted between the first and second Trio Tapestry albums. For Lovano, „Seeds of Change“ was a key piece in terms of approach on the trio’s debut album. The open form itself is at once a blues, a ballad, and a chamber music composition. With a feel and a flow that was special, leading directly to the title piece of Garden of Expression, the seeds having taken root. „Between the two albums we have an amazing repertoire now,“ says Lovano.
This new album also benefits from its recording at Lugano Switzerland’s Auditorio Stelio Molo SRI studio with highly responsive acoustics, with the details of the music optimally realized in Manfred Eichner’sproduction. The trio recorded in the studio on their second European tour in November 2019 after they’d performed a concert in the studio the evening before. „Having given a full performance there, we were very comfortable with the room,“ noted Lovano. „The tone there, and the sound and the feeling in that space, built to be a recital room, is amazing. We played forte and really felt it. We played at pianissimovolume, and you heard the music vibrating in the room. And that created a real spiritual delivery on each composition, as we allowed the music to unfold.“