| If it had been for Peter Frei to decide, then this album would not exist. As he sees it, modesty is a virtue, and his talent a gift. Frei about Frei: «I come to life when I play concerts. Before and afterwards, I'm very calm.»
Though he has ranked among the most accomplished double bass players in the European jazz scene for more than three decades, Peter Frei has never felt a strong desire for recording an album under his name. But things have turned out differently thanks to Dominic Egli (playing drums on this album). Frei has been one of the major formative influences in Egli's career (and as a trio with pianist Jean-Paul Brodbeck they've also recorded two highly acclaimed albums for Universal).
Frei says about Egli: «At the beginning his playing was reserved, and yet you could already feel that he was an extremely talented drummer.» Egli points out that he has learned more about jazz from Frei than he could have in any music school - and they not only played together, but also immersed themselves in studying historical recordings. «The more I got to understand improvised music and participated in collaborative projects alongside Peter Frei, the deeper I respected him for his stunning technique, his vast knowledge of music, his unerring sense of rhythm, his rich experience, his intuition and versatility when it comes to spontaneous interaction, and his innovative ideas,» Egli sums up. Thus, this album can also be seen as a musical declaration of love.
Which at the same time explains the concept of this album: three trios play in turn three more or less famous pieces from the inexhaustible «Great American Songbook». Frei, who has slightly adapted some of the songs, points out: «When for instance you play such a song in an uneven metre, it not only means that you approach it differently. It will also strengthen your feeling for form. The important thing for me was that the musicians learned what they were playing by heart and didn't need the scores, which is the only way to immerse oneself totally in music.»
As to the selection of his musical partners, Frei wasn't interested in featuring big names but instead chose young musicians he's had good experiences working with in the past and whom he knew to be open to the unexpected without neglecting form or structure. Pianist Colin Vallon draws on the introspective power of his excursions into improvisation, his lyricism always inspired by passion. Michael Zisman plays the bandoneon with the euphoric and melancholy touch so typical of this «instrument of desire». Tenor saxophonist Rafael Schilt succeeds in combining hymnic power with laconic conciseness.
PS: Peter Frei asked explicitly to avoid excessive name dropping, and I'm glad he did because, first, there is hardly anything more irritating than liner notes which reel off a litany of names and, second, the complete list of the musicians Frei has collaborated with in the course of his career is so long that it would go beyond the scope of this text (going from swing musicians like Harry «Sweets» Edison to boppers like Johnny Griffin to a maverick modernist like Art Lande, just to name a few; important bands Frei has played with were Magog, Billie Brook's Freebop and the Jazz Live Trio which accompanied many of the guests who participated in Swiss radio productions.)
Tom Gsteiger
(translated by Friederike Kulcsar) |