Jacob Young Trio

Eventually is the first album the Norwegian guitarist Jacob Young has recorded in the classic guitar, bass and drums format, and his fourth as a leader for ECM. With bassist Mats Eilertsen and drummer Audun Kleive he plays nine of his own pieces, moving between quiet lyricism and firmer grooves. With no piano or horn to share the melodic load, his guitar stands at the centre of the music, and his writing gains a new directness.

The trio recorded the album in May 2021 at Klokkereint Studio in Gjøvik. Sven Andréen engineered the session and mixed it with Kleive. Eilertsen is a long-standing partner who had already played on Young's ECM debut Evening Falls (2004) and on Sideways (2007). Kleive, known for his work with Terje Rypdal, adds percussive counterpoint and a sharper edge to the leader's ballads and more rhythmic tunes. The record follows Forever Young, where Young played with Trygve Seim and the Marcin Wasilewski Trio, and keeps that album's gentle lyricism.

Young names John Abercrombie and Jim Hall among his influences, and his playing moves between chords and single lines, with effects used sparingly. The title track opens the set with arpeggios that widen slowly, soft and tentative in mood. Schönstedtstraße is the most driving piece, a taut ostinato groove pushed by Kleive and coloured by spacey guitar overdubs. One For Louis is a tribute to Louis Armstrong, quiet and shadowy, with only faint echoes of his trumpet phrasing.

Writing in Jazzwise, Stuart Nicholson heard a sustained groove, "thoughtful, reflective and a little bit melancholy". For London Jazz News in 2023, Graham Spry found the album "distinguished by strong melodies and a delicate interplay between the three musicians". In Jazz Journal, Michael Tucker singled out Schönstedtstraße as the most immediately arresting track and called the whole record a terrific session. In the German magazine Rondo, Werner Stiefele heard no leader with sidemen but an open, conversational trio, with Eilertsen's bass combining attack and volume.

This is the CD edition, ECM 2764, first released on 12 May 2023, in ECM's usual cardboard O-card with a jewel case and a six-page folder.