Seeing opens a new chapter in the trio series that the Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen began on ECM with Changing Places in 2003. It is his most openly devotional record: alongside five originals come a Norwegian hymn, two Bach chorales and the 19th-century hymn Nearer My God, to Thee. The forms are compact and the solos short, in music that blends jazz, blues, gospel, Scandinavian folk and church music. Gustavsen says it "reflects my personal development as I get older, going for the essentials in life and music".
Drummer Jarle Vespestad has been with Gustavsen from the start, from Changing Places through The Other Side (2018). Double bassist Steinar Raknes, heard first on Opening (2022), now settles into a chair that had changed hands several times. The trio recorded in October 2023 at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines, their first session there, with Gérard de Haro as engineer and Manfred Eicher as producer. Gustavsen also adds discreet electronics to the piano.
The traditional Jesus, gjør meg stille (Jesus, make me quiet) is ushered in by drums and bowed bass before a simple melody opens out under Gustavsen's improvising. On Bach's Christ lag in Todesbanden the theme is almost teased out of the piano over Raknes's arco, while Auf meinen lieben Gott is played with a firmer hand. Nearer My God, to Thee builds to a crescendo before falling back into reverie. The closing Seattle Song came out of a soundcheck in Seattle in February 2023, when Raknes and Vespestad joined a piano interlude over an octave-spanning bass figure. Gustavsen felt that its "almost simplistic basic idea demanded to be left just like that".
Reviewers heard continuity and a new focus. Phil Johnson in London Jazz News wrote that admirers of the early trio albums "will find much to please them". He added that the record "sounds every bit as good as you could wish for". Peter Jones in Jazzwise, where it was an Editor's Choice, found Raknes to be Gustavsen's "perfect foil". Rob Adams in The List praised Vespestad as "brilliantly understated" and the "wonderfully woody tone" of the bass.
This is the CD edition, ECM 2820, first released on 4 October 2024.
