In April last year I went to see Norwegian trumpet player Mathias Eick at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh. And mightily pleased I was that I did!Like an awful lot of European trumpeters Eick is influenced by Miles Davis (perhaps less so, however, than Enrico Rava or Paolo Fresu).
To my mind he takes the soft, melancholic, plaintive tone of pre-electric, pre-Bitches Brew, Miles (or as I, purely personally, put it "Miles before he lost the plot"). But he then transposes that sort of sound to soft, ambient, rock influenced jazz. Don’t get me wrong some of the tunes can get a bit heavy but his signature sound is a very "gentle electric" rather than "full on electric". Hope that makes sense.
If not (or even if it does) then source the album and see for yourself.
Anyway, during the gig he explained how his tunes titles don’t really hold any "hidden meaning". He tends to name his tunes after what he happens to be looking at at the time, or where he is. So the tune "The Door" isn’t about a door – he was just looking at one when he composed/created it.
Anyway, I was over the moon to come across a recording of a gig he did seven month later in Berlin. More or less the same band (different drummer) and more or less the same playlist. Only there’s a new tune on it. Simply called "Edinburgh". Wonder when he wrote that?
Anyway, during the gig he explained how his tunes titles don’t really hold any "hidden meaning". He tends to name his tunes after what he happens to be looking at at the time, or where he is. So the tune "The Door" isn’t about a door – he was just looking at one when he composed/created it.
Anyway, I was over the moon to come across a recording of a gig he did seven month later in Berlin. More or less the same band (different drummer) and more or less the same playlist. Only there’s a new tune on it. Simply called "Edinburgh". Wonder when he wrote that?
1 comment:
Nice one Stuart, I seem to remember that gig too - didn't he also say that journalists were asking him for deeper meanings to the titles... but there just weren't any! Scandinavian humour haha.
Ray
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