The Musical Box

Who else but the veteran European jazz label ECM would issue an album called January with summer at the proverbial doorstep? Who else would then conjure a session full of sparsely designed, sublimely executed piano trio chill and wrap it up in cover art of a twilight skyline blurred to obscure any identity?

In quiet but striking fashion, ECM has remained true on January to its defining sound. The label has veered off at times into more abstract exercises, taken boppish retreats and occasionally delved into electronic, even rockish diversions. But January boasts everything that has made ECM music so arresting over the past three-plus decades: an improvisational sensibility rooted in jazz, a soloist/leader with a sense of musical reserve as versed as the technical command of his instrument and compositions ripe with rich impressionism.

Last year, the trophy for the most ECM-like ECM album went to Norweigan pianist Tord Gustavsen and a recording of jazz sleight-of-hand called Being There. While 2008 isn’t even half over yet, the winner of this year’s prize will likely be Polish pianist Marcin Wasilewski. Unlike Gustavsen, Wasilewski has a prized apprenticeship under his belt. Since 2001, he and the rest of the trio on January - bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz - have played behind the celebrated Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko as the free-jazz pioneer developed more melodic form for his music. The group also issued an ECM record of its own called simply Trio.

January understandably places the focus on Wasilewski’s meditative playing, but its ensemble sound still underscores ECM’s warm but decidedly wintry timbre.

The First Touch sets the mood for January, albeit very slowly, with pastoral, mid-register piano and the slightest of brushed shuffles on drums. There are heavy suggestions here of the ‘70s improvised solo piano recordings of Keith Jarrett (which, what a surprise, were issued on ECM). Melodies are pronounced, but remain spacious and unhurried.

The January entries that spark the greatest contemplative warmth, however, are cover tunes - and pretty diverse ones at that. Ennio Morricone’s luscious theme to Cinema Paradiso glides along with almost the same airy tempo as The First Touch, with piano creating an icy glaze around a theme that stops just shy of melancholy.

Similarly, the trio’s take on Prince’s Diamonds and Pearls, with a theme introduced not by Wasilewski, but with the beautifully organic sounds of strings popping on wood by Kurkiewicz, is a ballet of sorts. The tune’s pop leanings melt into attractive, descending chords that are repeated just enough to remind you of the song’s origin. But once Wasilewski digs in, the tempo turns to the sort of rubato that recalls Lyle Mays’ late ‘70s piano orchestration for the Pat Metheny Group (also on ECM, by the way).

The modern and playful phrasing of Carla Bley’s King Korn kicks up some dust within these soundscapes. But a lovely reading of Stanko’s Balladyna, which cries out for a cameo by the composer, furthers January’s blissful cool.

It should be noted that despite ECM’s preference for recording studios in Oslo, January was cut last year in New York - in February, no less. But when the music is so lusciously sedate as this, the times, locales, even season don’t matter. January, in this instance, is here and now.