Wolfgang Muthspiel - Rising Grace

The Guardian 80

(ECM)

Related: ECM: In search of free jazz and free expression

The ECM label, host to many European-American jazz dialogues, has released a very classy example in this encounter between Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel and the all-star US quartet of Brad Mehldau on piano, Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet, and Larry Grenadier and Brian Blade on bass and drums. Muthspiel, on electric and acoustic instruments, wrote all the tracks except Mehldau’s daintily swinging Wolfgang’s Waltz, and the music mingles echoes of Kenny Wheeler, the classical guitar sound of Ralph Towner and the songlike one of Pat Metheny, plus the quickwittedness of the mid-60s Miles Davis group. The title track is Wheeler-like in its transformations of a poignantly simple motif, and the graceful swerves of Akinmusire’s trumpet phrasing. Triad Song has a warm pop-ballad melody and sleek solos from Mehldau and Muthspiel; Boogaloo is a prodding laid-back Milesian groove peppered with Blade’s snare flurries; and the initially dreamy Den Wheeler Den Kenny moves in and out of understated swing. A set that epitomises ECM’s famous flair for oblique music that grows on you.