Kaufmann / Moore / Van Der Schyff: Kamosc

This trio embodies a tight but loose ideal on Kamosc which is conducive to effective music-making, and from the listener's point of view, its approach is nothing but positive. Listening to the likes of "Skimble-Scamble," one of two tracks on which trombonist Walter Wierbos puts in an appearance, is to hear a wealth of musical experience and influences distilled into a singular essence—or perhaps a modest soundtrack for the last days of the Weimar Republic, as viewed from the vantage point of a low whiskey bar. That's just one way of trying to convey the fact that Achim Kaufmann's compositions in particular have a tendency to evoke traditions outside of anything readily associated with "jazz" per se.

Dylan Van Der Schyff's drumming is anything but a marker of time. Instead, he shades and tracks the work of his compadres in a manner more befitting a stakeholder in a three-way discussion. And for all of his undoubted gifts as a soloist, multi-instrumentalist Michael Moore is right in keeping with the greater benefits to be derived from the absence of straightforward competition. Achim Kaufmann's right there too, extending the range of his piano through the use of what lies under the lid. "Ghosts At The Foot" is rich in European antecedents at the same time as it attacks the tiresome rule book with gusto.

The music we call jazz has now diversified to such a degree that different criteria now apply for assessing its worth, and the serious depth and substance of this music is a recommendation in itself to anyone with an interest in how the art is evolving in the modern age.

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