Florian Weber, Ralph Alessi, Linda May Han Oh, Nasheet Waits

Lucent Waters is the second ECM album by the German pianist Florian Weber, eight of his compositions and sketches played by a quartet of strong individual voices. Weber leads a trio with the bassist Linda May Han Oh and the drummer Nasheet Waits, and the trumpeter Ralph Alessi joins on three pieces. Water is the recurring image, and the writing leaves wide room for the players. "I see this album as a meeting of very independently-minded musicians", Weber says.

Weber was born in Detmold in 1977 and studied in Cologne and then in the United States, where his teachers included Paul Bley. His first ECM album was Alba, a 2016 duo with the trumpeter Markus Stockhausen. He and Oh first worked together about ten years earlier in a trio with Lee Konitz, who wrote the liner note for this album. Manfred Eicher suggested Waits, whom Weber had never played with before. The quartet recorded in September 2017 at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines, with Gérard de Haro engineering and Eicher producing.

The opening Brilliant Waters is a free piece for which Weber gave the band little more than its title. Melody of a Waterfall draws partly on Japanese drum ensembles and gives Waits his freest role. From Cousteau's Point of View comes from Weber's experience of diving, with its changed three-dimensional perspectives, and is built on three against seven, both patterns sounding at once. Honestlee, dedicated to Konitz, works with long lines and counterpoint drawing on ideas from the Tristano school. Fragile Cocoon begins gently and opens into a fiery trumpet feature over Waits's drumming.

In DownBeat in 2019, Paul de Barros heard an introspective, slow-moving record shaped by Bley's influence. He singled out Waits's break on Time Horizon and closed with "A lovely album, all around." For CJ Shearn of Jazz Views, the group finds common ground in contrasting styles to create "music with wonderful imagery". Fred Grand in Jazz Journal described a mostly quiet, impressionistic set and praised the musicianship throughout.

This is the CD edition of ECM 2593, released in November 2018.