Europe Jazz Media Chart - July 2025

Of course, it was to be expected that Everything Is Going To Be OK would not immediately become the changing album that pianist Chris Illingworth and bassist Nick Blacka would make after the departure of drummer of the first hour, Rob Turner, and the arrival of new drummer Jon Scott. Before that, simply too much had happened, including in their personal lives. That the more introspective album was nevertheless a fine go-around indicated their decisiveness yet again. After touring the album extensively worldwide, the time finally came for the three of them to sit down and discuss their musical directions. It initially came down to Illingworth and Blacka rearranging the GoGo Penguin studio in Manchester and the two of them began making music there freely. Scott, the only one living in London, joined them after a few weeks. At a relaxed pace, actually throughout 2024, the three musicians took time to work on new pieces. Necessary Fictions has become the album on which Illingworth, Blacka and Scott invent their version of GoGo Penguin. Of course, their sound is recognizable (those strong piano lines, those powerful and cool bass parts and those atypical drum parts) but their seventh album (not counting remix album GGP/RMX for the moment) dives full into adventure again. Illingworth has discovered synthesizers and uses them glowingly in the new tracks and Blacka and Scott are in blood form.

Kika Sprangers found her musical kindring and her musical dream partners: pianist Kjetil Mulelid, bassist Mats Eilertsen and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen … and they, they found a strong amalgamating transformative voice. It lead them on a trace to give shape to a shining common breathing ground.  Light, space, sonority - the slope tothe Nordic, to the width of space, to immersive drifting into melancholy - it offers a lot in different moods, modes and tempos with “Love Cycle” with its Dowland tinge as highlight in a seizing flow of music. A promising new group.

The title track in seven eights is a strong and yet gentle opening with the theme delicately played by the bass. Loops and multi-layered guitars do not crowd – there’s plenty of space for bass and drums. With titles like One For Louis (presumably Armstrong) and The Dog Ate My Homework Young also demonstrates an important historic reference and his sense of humor. Recorded 2021 in midland Norway EVENTUALLY presents guitarist Jacob Young’s fourth leader-recording for ECM. Young, bassist Eilertsen and drummer Kleive explore a wide range of temperaments and styles. EVENTUALLY oozes gentle lyricism, while Audun Kleive’s groovy infusions add counterpoint and edge to Jacob’s spiraling compositions and more rhythmically overt elaborations. The trio play thoughtfully, reflectively and with a tad subdued melancholy. Like gazing out the window on a cloudy day letting your thoughts wander – and time disappear. Before you know it the CD ends after 42 minutes.

A strange object that oscillates between dance, trance, meditation and improvisation. (Jacques Prouvost)

This is an atypical jazz and classical music or so-called third stream project with a tendency towards a cool jazz atmosphere. It is made even more atypical by leaving the drums outside the studio, emphasizing the vibraphone and clarinet and supplementing the sound with guitar and double bass. In the vinyl format, the album contains only original music – on the A side, vibraphonist Ēriks Miezis’s dreamy and three-movement Third Stream Suite plus a tribute to Brazilian master Heitor Villa-Lobos, while on the B side, clarinetist, the founder and head of the Latvian Music Academy Jazz department Indriķis Veitners’ more nostalgic retro-oriented pieces. The digital version is accordingly supplemented with the uplifting Benny Goodman hit Slipped Disc. This is also an international quartet, as the three Latvian musicians are joined by a Lithuanian guitarist, the head of the Jazz department of the Lithuanian university Vilnius Kolegija Pranas Kentra. The fourth member, double bassist Andris Grunte, is also an experienced jazz musician, so Deja Vu is a nuanced, easy-flowing record to be enjoyed with a light smile, outside of time and rules.

The studio session that shapes In The Light Of The Current Myth consists of seven free improvisations that form a kaleidoscope of a thousand different textures and continuous mutations. There is a sense of freedom, of play, even of fun, that runs through the album from beginning to end, allowing the band to deploy a vast palette of creative and technical resources in a continuous display of telepathy acquired through years and years of camaraderie and collaboration.

So this is already the 16th volume in a series with live recordings of concerts organized yearly by ACT at the famed Berlin Philharmonic, focusing on various themes and different instrumental combinations. The first „Piano Night” of some ten years ago featured three piano stars from different European countries, all closely associated with the German label: Iiro Rantala (Finland), Michael Wollny (Germany) and Leszek Możdżer (Poland). On “Piano Night II” they are joined by the new find from France, the Martinique born Grégory Privat. They are playing alternately solo, in various duets, and closing as a quartet. The music is mostly classically inspired, moody and introspective. There are eleven tracks, each pianist contributing an original composition, with the exception of Leszek Możdżer who chose Chopin instead (“Etude in C Minor –Revolutionary”). In “Enjoy the Silence” (Depeche Mode) his duet partner is Michael Wollny, who comes to the fore in the second part of the album. Iiro Rantala appears to be most jazzy in the traditional sense (stride piano in “Singing in the Rain”). All four get together for the final display of showmanship in Ellington’s “Caravan,” getting a thunderous applause.

The Analects Of Confucius is a good look back to 2000, on the great pianist and improviser Misha Mengelberg. And the interaction with the japanese drummer Sabu Toyozumi is, roughly, like hearing Mengelberg together with Han Bennink. And throughout the release they serve excellent free jazz that will stand as a stellar example of good communication and excellent improvisation.