release date: Sep. 6, 1982
format: cd (ECM 1223)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,08]
producer: Manfred Eicher
label: ECM Records - nationality: Norway
Track highlights: 1. "The Path" (4 / 5) - 2. "Footprints" (4 / 5) - 3. "Kite Dance" (5 / 5) - 4. "To B.E." (4 / 5) - 5. "The Move" (4 / 5) - 8. "Still"
Studio album by Jan Garbarek with Bill Frisell on guitar, Eberhard Weber on bass, and with Jon Christensen on drums and percussion.
Working together with the jazz fusion and modern classical guitar icon, Bill Frisell, could easily have led the music astray but Garbarek is ever-present in a dominating part with drums, percussion, bass and guitar as the subtle backbone. Of course it helps that Garbarek is credited as composer of all tracks, but the album is really one of my favourite Garbarek albums. He's famous for his incorporation of folklore and / or (old) traditional Norwegian folk spliced with modern jazz fusion. His instruments are the soprano and alto sax (he also plays tenor and other instruments as clarinet and percussion); however the instrument, his playing style is original and far from traditional jazz instrumentalists, and in that sense he has much in common with Danish trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg and his Nordic and ambient jazz sound. Frisell together with Weber, Christensen and especially Frisell is a wonderful cocktail.
Highly recommendable.
[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone 3 / 5, The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings 3 / 4 stars ]
