Tingvall Trio

ECHO JAZZ 2010: Ensemble Of the Year, Domestic
German Jazz Charts
The Tingvall Trio numbers among the very few young German Jazz acts that have worked their way to the vanguard of their genre in a very brief time span, even internationally. As the media raved on about the consistent quality of their entire first album, SKAGERRAK, (NDR: “Remarkable, capital testimony to musicality far from the beaten path”), the conclusion from fans, the radio and press was already emerging that this distinctive group sound had become even more homogeneous on NORR, the subsequent album. Live concerts turned into highly acclaimed season highlights, and the joint venture “TT” received a new international dimension. Alongside many successful bookings in Germany, the trio was able to gain plenty of new fans in Scandinavia, Poland, Spain and the Benelux region. In Japan, the volume pressed for the audiophile vinyl editions proved to be a solid gauge of their popularity.

Meanwhile the Tingvall Trio has matured into one of the leading European piano trios: purely acoustic, with a song-oriented repertoire that gives the music such a stand-alone sound. It’s this catchiness that has developed into a trademark and opened the ears of realms of listeners far beyond confirmed jazz fans. This unmistakeable Tingvall Trio Sound is fed by dynamic currents of energy expressed in rhythm and groove coupled with what could almost be termed pop melody miniatures aligned to a partially ‘classic’ construction. Far from rigid, the whole is then playfully enhanced again and again by improvisations that unleash new ground.

The source of these compositions is Martin Tingvall (who has also composed for Udo Lindenberg). On VATTENSAGA (which translates to ‘water saga’), this Swedish pianist has crafted 13 new musical pearls together with his fellow artists Omar Rodriguez Calvo, a native Cuban on double bass, and drummer Jürgen Spiegel from Germany. Tales revolving around the key basic element water, its power, fascination and magic, define these nearly cinematically designed pieces (Martin Tingvall spends part of the year in southern Sweden close to the sea and the many lakes). After appearances in 2009 at major jazz festivals in Leverkusen, Berlin and Moscow, the trio is going to be heard at numerous live gigs in 2010 ranging from Basel, Vienna and Sweden all the way to Munich, Barcelona and Dubai.