• List Price: $12.99  
• Your Price: $12.99
• In Stock: [{"available":"0"}]

You must login to place orders.




Not purchasing for a business? See our consumer site.

Acclaimed Swiss pianist and composer Christoph Stiefel will release his new album 'Big Ship' on Basho records. This follows the Live! album from 2012. Big Ship is an assured and multi-faceted studio set that will further broaden Stiefel's audience. Listeners familiar with his explorations of the compositional technique of Isorhythms may find themselves surprised. The track titles give a clue that there has been a change of approach. Whereas Live! contained a series of numbered Isorhythms, the term is nowhere to be found here. Isorhythmic features and techniques are still present in a number of the tunes , for example on Angel Falls, but they are no longer necessarily the foundation of the compositions. This time, without the need for a recurring ostinato, Stiefel has allowed more space for the exploration of melody, harmony and interesting movement within the music. The depth and variety of material on Big Ship is striking. Thalatta and Attitudes have an urgency and joyfulness that hints at South African jazz, whilst New May is a strongly melodic ballad. Stiefel displays a lightness of touch that shows he is an extremely strong and versatile musician. Much of this music has been written around this group of players, a new incarnation of the Inner Language trio that first toured to promote the live album. Bassist Arne Huber is strong in calmer, more reflective contexts, whilst drummer Kevin Chesham (heard on two tracks on the Live! album) is as interested in textures as in rhythmic trickery and interaction. Big Ship serves as a metaphor for the changes in the group. It has steered a different course as the personnel has changed, but it remains the same vessel. Stiefel suggests that the group has turned towards jazz and away from pure Isorhythmic concepts. This is a trio with real authority and knowledge of the jazz tradition, using this and their technical ability to craft something meaningful and contemporary - a personal vision of what jazz can be today.

Track Listing

Press Quotes

'The most startling European jazz trio I've come across since first hearing Tingvall trio it's a delicious album of Stiefel's own compositions, wrought with their own wistful energy and imaginative bittersweet resolutions. The narrative arc the trio so instinctively assembles spins out, even in 'First Blossom' the briefest of the compositions, and draws you in like a moth to the flame as the ship sails blithely on.'

     —Stephen Graham, Marlbank

'Out on the oceans, a big ship can seem ungainly and slow to respond. No such problem for this Big Ship. Throughout the 11 tunes the Inner Language Trio demonstrates a masterly command of rhythm and dynamics--shifting direction and pace with the agility of

     —Bruce Lindsay, All About Jazz

'Stiefel is quietly putting down his own stamp on contemporary piano trio jazz.'

     —Selwyn Harris, Jazzwise

An assured album of contemporary European piano trio music.

     —Peter Bacon, The Jazz Breakfast

'Stiefel's compositional and pianistic range is impressive - often full-on-energetic and infectiously rhythmic; at other times, finding delicately reflective backwaters. And in bassist Arne Huber and drummer Kevin Chesham, he has discovered two empathetic

     —Adrian Pallant, AP Album Reviews