It's striking how the American saxophonist Joe Lovano has taken a step back musically since he signed with ECM. With this, he also completely connects with this German label around owner and house producer Manfred Eicher. On the first album
Trio Tapestry (2019), it still sounded somewhat forced: the musical powerhouse and interpreter of robust avant-garde jazz and fusion of the past, who makes a
… U-turn to tranquil European jazz. But it was mainly in his collaboration with the Marcin Wasilewski Trio on the ECM album Arctic Riff (2020) that the saxophonist blossomed into his new guise. Garden Of Expression was recorded with the same trio as Trio Tapestry. Once again, they play hesitantly, deeply and with many solemn silences between the notes. In the ten-minute long closing song Zen Like there is almost only sound, with Lovano playing mainly oriental bells and gongs. Once again, the trio fails to generate any tension, so their zen sounds offer little more than pleasant, but also somewhat dull meditative rest. (MR)more