New Simplicity Trio: Common Spaces

COMPOSERS: New Simplicity Trio
LABELS: Babel
ALBUM TITLE: New Simplicity Trio
WORKS: Common Spaces
PERFORMER: Bruno Heinen (piano), Henrik Jensen (double bass), Antonio Fusco (drums)
CATALOGUE NO: BBDV1647

The New Simplicity Trio (NST) says it took its name from the post-serial movement of late-1970s contemporary classical composers. If that suggests an academic even dry approach to the music, don’t be put off. In practice it means the London-based trio aims to distil their music down to its essential melodic and harmonic qualities.

Whereas a lot of European (and especially UK) jazz today can be high energy, dense and often full on, NST allows plenty of space around each player, drawing the listener in. Likewise, the writing duties are shared around equally and this set is all original bar a plaintive reading
of Mingus’s ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’.

Heinen trips lightly through his own tune ‘Daydreamer’, as Fusco patters in the background anchored by a repeated bass motif from Jensen. The album’s title track, penned by Fusco, emerges quietly from a smattering of cymbals, Heinen picking out the hypnotic Satie-esque melody. A rather lovely, low-key album.

Garry Booth