Jacob Young - Evening Falls (2004)

It's been an ECM kind of week for me, so here we are again, this time jumping back a decade for another guitarist, in his debut with the label recorded in December 2002.  Lillehammer native Jacob Young has been working with some of the hottest names in Nordic jazz since the 90s, and here fronts a two-horn quintet that includes one of my favourite ECM trumpeters of recent years, Mathias Eick.

Rather than put his clear guitar talents front and centre, Young's sound on this set of his own material is a sumptuously arranged and well-meshed group performance of highly lyrical tunes.  The immersive melancholy makes Evening Falls a well-chosen title for just under an hour of late listening.  As well as enjoying Young's lean playing, Eick is the obvious breakout star of this session, but Vidar Johansen sounds fantastic here too, especially when he switches from sax to bass clarinet.  Lovely stuff all round.

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Mathias Eick - Midwest (2015)

Third album as leader for Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick, and probably one of the finest ECM albums of the last decade.  For me, it gets in to such esteemed company as Wisława for much the same reasons: having an inspired lineup playing at the top of its game on some superb compositions.

Eick's inspiration for this album was a tour of the US where he travelled through the rural Midwest.  Struck by the landscape's resemblance to his native land, he wondered if early Norwegian immigrants to the area had thought the same.  To translate this migratory concept into music, Eick scaled back the more contemporary sound of his breakthrough album Skala, and added folk violinist Gjermund Larsen.

 

The result was an inspired coupling of Eick's lyrical, Chet Baker/Kenny Wheeler inspired melodicism with an earthy folkiness that really makes these wide-open-space melodies stick in your brain, and rewards repeat plays.  Jon Balke's beautifully understated piano and the rhythm section of Mats Eilertsen/Helge Norbakken are the perfect foil to Eick and Larsen's soaring melodies.  Highly recommended.

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