Tord Gustavsen - Extended Circle (2014)

For popular Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen, the title of his sixth album for ECM has a programmatic significance. Extended Circle refers, he says, to the completion of a "double circle" of trilogies: the first with the trio heard on Changing Places, The Ground and Being There, and the second with the quartet (formed inside the expanded ensemble of Restored, Returned in 2009 and then documented on The Well in 2012).

Recorded in Oslo in June 2013, the album quietly but most assuredly takes Gustavsen's music to the next stage of its development. His quartet with Tore Brunborg, Mats Eilertsen and long-term associate Jarle Vespestad has matured into a group whose interactions draw strength from restraint, patiently building the music toward its climaxes. Extended Circle incorporates tunes inspired by chorales and spirituals, developed collectively and gradually integrated into the repertoire as the group toured in the wake of The Well.

Here are new gospel-tinged pieces and ballads from Tord's pen, gentle and luminescent group improvisations, and an ecstatic interpretation of the Norwegian traditional "Eg Veit I Himmerik Ei Borg" ("I Know A Castle In Heaven"). The recording opens and closes with a trio piece, while exploring textural and dynamic variations in between. "You come back to the point of departure but with new insight - and things are the same but not the same," Gustavsen sums up an album that in his view points forward to musical openness, but also back to his 2003 ECM debut.

Personnel: Tord Gustavsen (piano), Tore Brunborg (tenor saxophone), Mats Eilertsen (double bass), Jarle Vespestad (drums)