On Provenance, the Jormin brothers, Anders on double bass and Christian on piano, drums and percussion, play an album of open, airy, sometimes wintry music that blends jazz, classical and folk idioms. The two are both well known in the Nordic jazz scene, but this is their first outing together. It has become one of my go-to records for quiet listening late at night.
The album is dominated by mostly pensive, quiet and cool improvised music like the opener, a traditional song called “And Yet, I Wish You Well.” Anders plays the entire piece arco, often using what I think is a flageolet style of bowing, while Christian moves fluidly from piano to all kinds of tinkling percussion. Others in this style include the chill “Song From The Lake Of Jorm” with its fugue-like piano melody; “M,” a darkly colored folk-like piece with classical overtones; the traditional “Herding Song” which devolves into an improvised soundscape of bass and percussion; and the lovely melodic duet “Ave Maria.” The eight-minuge “Adagio Faroese” has two roughly equal parts, the first filed with Anders’ carnatic-style sliding between notes and Christian playing more of that tinkly percussion. The second becomes a lovely cool-jazz piano tune with pizzicato bass accompaniment, probably my favorite moment on the album.
The duo occasionally pick up the pace and hew more closely to jazz stylings. “Cirrus,” though free-floating, is basically a blues with a stuttering time signature; “Villages And Rivers” seems to have some Vince Guaraldi influences; and “Laid On Straw,” another traditional piece, has lots of jazzy, improvized feel in its melodic section. And “Bismillah,” its title an Arabic word for an Islamic blessing, is a fine uptempo piano-bass blues containing a Latin-sounding section with Christian on drums and percussion as Anders plays a lengthy bass solo.
(Footprint, 2013)
