(((O))) Review: Christian Holm-Svendsen with Daniel Sommer and Mariusz Prasniewski – Totem

“In jazz and in other forms of modern improvised music, the constellation of instruments obviously has a significant impact on the we experienced music”. Flemming Agerskov’s opening liner notes says it all. There’s a certain way on how the genre of jazz is formed. You have the forms of the players in which they take turns with their solos, and the way they approach it.

Whether it’s free-jazz, avant-garde, blues, bebop, or spiritual guidance, it can take you to a whole other level. That and an incredible trio takes you back into the late ‘50s, early ‘60s with an incredible sigh of relief. Saxophonist Christian Holm-Svendsen, drummer Daniel Sommer, and string bassist Mariusz Prasniewski are this perfect match when it comes to the genre with the release of their latest album, Totem.

This is kind of unique. This is an album that just puts you right in the middle of unbelievable results in which the three-piece take you right back in to the labels between Impulse and Blue Note. Listening to Totem is like looking through the paintings in an art gallery, reflecting the wonders of what the painters were listening to during that time frame.

Recorded in two days from May 8th to the 9th of last year at the Village Recording in Copenhagen, Denmark, they took the same similarity in which Coltrane had recorded A Love Supreme in one night on December 9th, 1964. You can just close your eyes and imagine yourself, being at the studio, witnessing Sommer, Prasniewski, and Holm-Svendsen working together as a band of brothers, creating the vast majority of the love they share with the genre.

There’s the romantic side of it (‘Vent’), sombering textures (‘Duo’ and ‘Dvale’), and those smoky night clubs that’ll take you back to the Greenwich Village area in New York or in the heart of Paris on ‘Per Aspera Ad Astra’. The great thing about the power trio is that they don’t mess around, they get down to business when it comes to making great arrangements.

For example, on the title-track, Christian hypnotises listeners by taking them on his magic carpet ride with Mariusz adding more fuel to the fire as Daniel himself makes those explosions happen at the right moment when he goes ballistic. Plus, a moody swinging form comes into the frame with ‘5 foot 4’ whereas they walk and dance to the medley and to the closing bossa-nova atmosphere on ‘Ba Da Da Di’.

Totem is a true form of jazz music like you’ve never heard it before. It takes you right back to the elements of Coltrane’s My Favorite Things and Giant Steps. You can tell how much their love of his music fell into place. And the experience itself, is the trip that is well worth it.