8 for 3 and 4

Michal Nejtek, a composer and pianist of contemporary music whose gradual approach to jazz I had followed with a listener’s mild suspicion, now speaks of “a return to acoustic sound, to the piano, a return by a roundabout route, a return with respect for the variety of paths the world of sound offers us.” At forty he has recorded his first album as a bandleader, on which he makes his vision of jazz in 2017 audible through his own writing. At his side once again are the outstanding double bassist Tomáš Liška and one of the most sought-after drummers on the Czech scene, Martin Novák. On three tracks the trio is joined by Jiří Šimek, an original among the guitarists of his generation.

Nejtek’s style synthesises the long development of modern piano playing, and not only in jazz, without ever being derivative. He reveals a wide spectrum of expressive ideas right away in the opening Quit The Quince. How perfectly the trio works rhythmically (and that includes swing) is beautifully demonstrated by the driving Ritual Downgrade, a model example of a contemporary take on the legacy of modern jazz. The lyrical, mysterious theme of Shadows Roses is introduced by legato bass notes and a repeated piano phrase before Šimek’s guitar and the drums join in for the first time; the motif returns suggestively, and the ending belongs to the guitar’s quiet electronic tone painting. Nejtek and Liška co-wrote the melodically tender Cryptic Waltz in three-four time. In the middle of the dreamlike Le Jung / Tears Of Eric, with its blazing finale, the trio launches into a percussive carnival. The following (Your) Maybies sounds as if someone had set up a piano for Uri Caine on a beach in Rio de Janeiro years ago; halfway through, Šimek takes over the theme in electric guitar mode. In Love & Fury Control, a piece packed with impressions, we savour small ideas: the whistles and creaks of a cymbal at the start, the hum of the double bass, Liška’s solo opened with long bowed notes, and beneath it all a minimal, repeating piano phrase. The closing Learn Some Manners throws us into a whirl of rhythmic and sonic ferocity; Šimek’s guitar takes the lead and carries the piece through a metal solo to a free-jazz passage with Nejtek’s piano, all the way to the deliberately monotonous aggression of its “rap” ending. Maturity and the joy of music in an extraordinary symbiosis.

Catalogue number: AMP172004