The CD Started of Gabriela Friedli, Daniel Studer and Dieter Ulrich is a persuasive opening statement regardless of what metric is used to assess the album, be it the album's contribution to Swiss jazz's evolving narrative, its articulation of a wide range of compositional and improvisational strategies that will shape jazz in the immediate future, or its riposte to the increasingly soporific state of the jazz piano trio. The album's more immediate virtue, however, is that it is thoroughly engaging from beginning to end.
At first glance, Friedli's approach to her trio seems straightforward; she and Studer compose materials and the trio improvises on them. However, both composers emphasize the connotative powers of the fragment, which plays to Friedli, Studer and Ulrich's respective skills at blurring the lines between scored and extemporaneous materials. They can effortlessly slip between the two; as the album unfolds, it becomes apparent that the trio has many routes across this frontier. Bill Shoemaker, Liner Notes |