Trespass Trio - The Spirit of Pitesti (2017)

After “…was there to illuminate the night sky…”, “Bruder Beda” and “Human Encore”, this one with Joe McPhee as special guest, Trespass Trio is back to tell us another story without words. There’s a narrative structure developing from start to finish, with a cinematic quality, but everything goes through an emotional level (from rage to a disarming tenderness) and the clear invitation to imagine scenarios, characters and dialogues. Again, that story has political connotations. Pitesti is a Romanian city which got notorious because the local prison was home of brainwashing experiments during the totalitarian regime. In that process of “reeducation” of the prisoners, violence between the inmates was encouraged by the secret police. The procedures got so out of hand that the communist authorities stopped everything five years later. The prison staff was pardoned (of course!), but some inmate collaborationists were condemned to death. Combining composition and improvisation, rigor and passion, minor tones and grand gestures, the music touches us deeply. Trespass Trio became one of the most defying units of the contemporary European jazz and each new opus is a masterpiece. “The Spirit of Pitesti” is no exception. Not to be missed.