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81 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
ECM: pioneer and perfecter of down tempo jazz, October 27, 2003
Sometimes it takes me a while to get it. For some strange reason, I struggled to find the context, the vibe, for this music (even though, once I got it, it was pretty obvious)--then it just clicked in: ECM down-tempo jazz.What threw me, I think, is that there's never been an ECM outing quite like this one. ECM, of course, had pioneered down-tempo jazz as long ago as 1974 with Jan Garbarek's great release, Witchi-Tai-To (misspelled, by the way; composer Jim Pepper spells it Witchi-Tia-To). Over the years, with artists like Dino Saluzzi, Terje Rypdal, Haden/Garbarek/Gismonti, John Taylor, Charles Lloyd, Arild Andersen, Misha Alperin, Ketil Bjornstad, Vassilis Tsabropoulos, ECM has perfected the down-tempo jazz aesthetic. What separates Tord Gustavsen's Changing Places from the above artists is its extreme melodicism. In contrast, for example, Garbarek's down-tempo approach has always been folk (and, to a lesser extent, rock)-rooted; Lloyd's, gospel- and spiritual-rooted; Saluzzi's, tango-rooted. The music of Rypdal, Alperin, Andersen, and Bjornstad has a kind of sweep and grandeur completely lacking in Changing Places. To these ears, Gustavsen sounds most like John Taylor, but even more delicate, pretty, and melodic than the great British pianist--so much so that I initially mistook Changing Places for some kind of pop/classical/New Age melange. A closer listen began to reveal its authentic jazz sensibility: the lilting bluesiness of "Ign," the jazz/tango roots of "At a Glance" and "Melted Matter," the latter the most starkly beautiful number on the disc, and one of the most poignant and purely beautiful jazz songs ever recorded. One of the startling things about this disc is its complete lack of melancholly, a staple of down-tempo jazz and of most Nordic jazz artists. Wistfulness, poignancy, longing, maybe just a tinge of sadness--but no melancholly. I don't hear much if anything of either Bill Evans or Keith Jarrett in this music. The fact that it is melodic and pretty, as Evans was and Jarrett is, doesn't necessarily mean it derives from them--or even sounds much like them. Instead, it sounds like European classical music and tango are the main influences--although Gustavsen betrays neither none of the stiffness of many jazz-slumming classical pianists nor the overly mannered playing of many tango-oriented musicians. Rather, I detect a sly and completely unexpected bluesiness (although of a European rather than American flavor) and very subtle though sophisticated Latin rhythmic feel (again, mainly tango-based, although seemingly owing nothing to Astor Piazzola, the late great master and inventor of the New Tango) that gives his compositions the spine and character that New Age music lacks. It strikes me that what this really is is a world-jazz disc, although of a very unusual and subtle type. In any case, Changing Places is a truly remarkable disc that should appeal to a wide range of listeners.
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~ Tord Gustavsen Trio
~ Tomasz Stanko
~ Simple Acoustic Trio
~ Marcin Wasilewski
~ Nik Bärtsch
by Tord Gustavsen Trio 
