Changing Places

Introducing a new piano trio from Norway. Tord Gustavsen's young group, already making waves in the Far North - where "Changing Places" has soared into the pop charts - is telling new stories within the framework of the jazz tradition. This is music that sings, at once gentle and robust. The songs Gustavsen writes sound like standards-in-the-making - lyrical, immediately memorable songs, songs of an appealing freshness, yet sophisticated in their involvement with the melodic line. And the trio improvises, with flair and originality, inside their structures.

Tord Gustavsen - piano
Harald Johnsen - double-bass
Jarle Vespestad - drums

"With his very first record as a leader, Tord Gustavsen has created an instant classic - Gustavsen is a master of pianistic control and restraint. This is the least grandstanding great jazz album I have heard since Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue"."
- Richard Lehnert, Stereophile

"Technical display is at a premium, and the compositions, all by the leader, are beguiling simple and intensely melodic. Gustavsen avoids flourishes of emotion, and while it's brave to begin an album at the funereal pace of "Deep As Love", it's braver still to continue that way. Changing Places is a distinctive achievement and marks the emergence of a potentially major talent."
- Andy Hamilton, Jazz Review

"Changing Places is a beauty - but soaked in a hushed, delicate romanticism that's hard to resist. Most of the record is pitched at a whisper, with the spaces between the notes easily as significant as the notes themselves. …A truly beautiful record that (if there's any justice) will find a place as one of ECM's finest releases of the last few years, and probably a place in your heart too. Gorgeous".
- Peter Marsh, BBC Online

"The magic of music has rarely been in better hands than on this beautiful debut album by the trio of pianist Tord Gustavsen - It's the seamless, melodic interplay of the trio that catches the ear. This is Norwegian jazz - soulful, yet cool, brooding and almost pensive. The music flows with subtle finesse".
- Kevin Jones, The Australian