Leszek Mozdzer, Lars Danielsson, Zohar Fresco - The Time (2005)

Artists: Leszek Mozdzer, Lars Danielsson, Zohar Fresco
Album: The Time
Label: Outside Music (OMCD001)
Year: 2005
Genre: Jazz, Contemporary Jazz (piano trio)
Format: FLAC
Time: 56:36
Size: ~280 MB incl. 3% recovery (3 files)

The music on this album is very communicative, melodic, easy-to-listen. Songs comprise original comnpositions but also improvisations on medieval song, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit or Komeda’s Svantetic. The music is very coherent, rewarding and delivered with best possible quality. And in Poland it sold like hell reaching in a span of weeks double platinium status. Excellent proposal for all who like beautiful music that has true jazz heart, free and improvising, but still is closer to popular tastes rather than avant-garde.. Source: kochamjazz (blog), February 2010

Released in 2005, The Time received a double-platinum award for selling more than 20.000 copies within two month of being released. So, if you don’t already own this album, my first question has to be, why not?

I first came across Leszek Mozdzer and Lars Danielsson on their excellent duo album Pasodoble, and many of the qualities on that album are equalled and surpassed on The Time, due in part to the addition of the sensitive and musically enthralling contribution of percussionist Zohar Fresco. The creative drive behind many of the compositions on this album is down to either Mozdzer or Danielsson, but the sense of collective musicianship means that the character of each piece is very much dictated by a unity of sound and equality of contribution which rises above the common jazz tradition of composed hook, followed by a row of more or less tediously ego-trip solos.

There are a number of highlights for me on this disc, but the main attraction for me is in fact the thematic ‘ritornello’ quality between many of the tracks, anchored by the Asta series – each being a kind of variation around a certain kind of harmonic nuance, while at the same time possessing plenty of individual character and contrast. The opening of the first Asta has some of that open-landscape feel, with Danielsson’s bass sounding like the song of a whale, and Mozdzer’s piano the sparkling waves above. The soulful main theme, sung in the distance by Fresco, sums up the feel of the album – restrained and lyrical, and like much good music possessing melancholy and a spirit of underlying joy at the same time. This is reinforced by the majestic Incognator, which mirrors the descending bass of the previous track with a gorgeous rising progression.

A change of pace kicks in with the folk-like Sortorello, which fuses a medieval dance with the trio’s unique idiom: providing the musicians with a vehicle for some more improvisatory playing. With Tsunami we arrive at another track which has me groping for superlatives. Monumental and disturbing in its simple, sometimes chorale-like lines, I can imagine this expressing all kinds of things to all kinds of people. The relatively brief title track The Time is another confluence of shade and subtlety, drawing lines of music together like the laces of your favourite old shoes – the ones which fit perfectly, and which you never want to throw out.

After a reprise and development of the opening track in Asta II in which Danielsson performs some expressive pizzicato on the cello, we have another swinging track in Easy Money, in which the colourful instrumentation and lightness of touch of Zohar Fresco’s percussion plays an important role. Kurt Cobain’s Smells Like Teen Spirit might seem like a unusual number to include here, but the arrangement suits this trio like a hand in a glove, the simplicity of the central progression being richly transformed and providing a rolling groove for some refined improvisation. Even when this trio is improvising it somehow sounds composed – by which I don’t mean contrived or restricted – it’s just the way they do things: highly controlled, detailed, meticulously measured and prepared, but going beyond extravagant technical fireworks and exploring more deeply into real music making. This is also true of Krzysztof Komeda’s Svantetic, the trio paying tribute to this legend of Polish jazz with a reasonably straight rendition of what should be more of a classic number outside Poland.

Suffering subdues the piano with damped strings, overdubbing Danielsson’s cello with simultaneous pizzicato and bowed notes. Fresco’s percussion has an ethnic colour in this music, but no member of his battery of exotic instruments is allowed to become an overbearing feature of this music. Like all good percussionists, he knows the value of stable but interesting rhythm, picking out character in the music through the variety of accents and touches on his simple but beautifully constructed hand-held drum. The final notes of Suffering run straight into the freely improvised opening to Trip to Bexach, which soon becomes an infectious, dancing number in which the left hand of Mozdzer’s piano is damped, most of the melody allowed to sing free to magical effect. The final Asta III initially turns the piano into an autoharp – I do love Mozdzer’s creativity with the piano. Danielsson is again on cello here, and Fresco adds fresh-air sparkle with light cymbal touches, bringing the album full-circle with a sung conclusion. The added bonus version of Suffering, a sort of fun out-take, is like the encore to a live concert – something which one can take or leave, but is something of an indulgence on what is otherwise an immaculately turned record. ~Dominy Clements, musicweb-international.com

The Music:
01 - Asta (Lars Danielsson) 06:37
02 - Incognitor (Leszek Mozdzer) 05:18
03 - Sortorello (Anonymous, 13th century) 03:22
04 - Tsunami (Leszek Mozdzer) 05:02
05 - The Time (Leszek Mozdzer, Zohar Fresco) 02:50
06 - Asta II (Lars Danielsson) 02:55
07 - Easy Money (Leszek Mozdzer) 04:01
08 - Smells Like Teen Spirit (David Grohl, Chris Novoselic, Kurt Cobain) 06:32
09 - Svantetic (Krzysztof Komeda) 04:43
10 - Suffering (Lars Danielsson) 04:58
11 - Trip To Bexbach (Leszek Mozdzer) 04:16
12 - Asta III (Lars Danielsson) 04:00
13 - Suffering (Lars Danielsson) 01:56

The Players:
* Leszek Mozdzer - Piano
* Lars Danielsson - Double Bass, Cello
* Zohar Fresco - Percussion, Vocals

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