JAN GUNNAR HOFF - Stories
2L: 2L-131-SABD
Jan Gunnar Hoff: piano;
Recorded August 2017 by Morten Lindberg in Sofienberg Church, Norway
HOFF ENSEMBLE- Polarity
2L: 2L-145-SABD
Jan Gunnar Hoff: piano; Audun Klieve: drums; Anders Jormin: bass
Recorded September 2017 by Morten Lindberg in Sofienberg Church, Norway
2L: 2L-131-SABD
Jan Gunnar Hoff: piano;
Recorded August 2017 by Morten Lindberg in Sofienberg Church, Norway
HOFF ENSEMBLE- Polarity
2L: 2L-145-SABD
Jan Gunnar Hoff: piano; Audun Klieve: drums; Anders Jormin: bass
Recorded September 2017 by Morten Lindberg in Sofienberg Church, Norway
Notwithstanding the shared venue for their recording, or Hoff’s composition, arrangements and piano playing on both sets, there is a shared intention across these two CDs to reflect the richness and diversity that acoustic jazz can offer. Additionally, both sets capture that way in which Hoff’s tunes combine a cinematic sweep in their emotional range with an intimate, confessional quality; as if he is recounting his stories directly to you, the listener. Not surprising, then, that both sets present versions of his tune ‘The Elder’ (track 2 on the solo CD and track 3 on the trio set). This piece was composed in the study in which the Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman worked, on the island of Faro (off the coast of Sweden). This is no coincidence: because these tunes share the humour and melancholy of Bergman’s cinema, together with the conjuring of characters and capturing the atmosphere of place.
It is interesting that so many of the tunes on these sets have single word titles, as if the listener is being given the gist of the story but needs to fill in the background and details themselves. So, a tune like ‘Justice’, on the trio set, brings with it a sense of foreboding but also hope. This is a piece that, like several on these recordings (and across Hoff’s recorded output), are reminiscent of television theme tunes or film scores (albeit for a sort of hard-boiled detective noir). He can arrange well-known pop songs, such as ‘God only knows’ (track 4 on the solo CD) or ‘Answer me’ (track 8 on the solo CD), and fill them with softly lilting, wistfulness. On the other hand, as he shows on ‘Polarity’ (track 4 on the trio CD) or ‘Euphoria’ (track 8 on the trio CD), he can create energetic tunes that swing madly. It is interesting to hear the use of an analogue synthesizer (a Prophet 6) on ‘Polarity’ as pre-programmed backing to the trio, as if there is a fourth member joining in without disturbing or intruding on the others.
Both recordings enjoy the surroundings of the Sofienberg Church. You can see this is photographs that accompany the liner notes. But more impressively, you can hear this in the Auro-3D recording on the bluray disc that comes with the CD. Perhaps there must be something special to compete with the audio quality that Hoff would be familiar with from his recordings with ECM. I played the bluray versions through my home cinema system and was immediately struck by the peculiar sense of the music having a vertical dimension; not simply the impression that the instruments were positioned around the room in which I was listening to this, but that I was sitting somewhere above them a looking down on them.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
It is interesting that so many of the tunes on these sets have single word titles, as if the listener is being given the gist of the story but needs to fill in the background and details themselves. So, a tune like ‘Justice’, on the trio set, brings with it a sense of foreboding but also hope. This is a piece that, like several on these recordings (and across Hoff’s recorded output), are reminiscent of television theme tunes or film scores (albeit for a sort of hard-boiled detective noir). He can arrange well-known pop songs, such as ‘God only knows’ (track 4 on the solo CD) or ‘Answer me’ (track 8 on the solo CD), and fill them with softly lilting, wistfulness. On the other hand, as he shows on ‘Polarity’ (track 4 on the trio CD) or ‘Euphoria’ (track 8 on the trio CD), he can create energetic tunes that swing madly. It is interesting to hear the use of an analogue synthesizer (a Prophet 6) on ‘Polarity’ as pre-programmed backing to the trio, as if there is a fourth member joining in without disturbing or intruding on the others.
Both recordings enjoy the surroundings of the Sofienberg Church. You can see this is photographs that accompany the liner notes. But more impressively, you can hear this in the Auro-3D recording on the bluray disc that comes with the CD. Perhaps there must be something special to compete with the audio quality that Hoff would be familiar with from his recordings with ECM. I played the bluray versions through my home cinema system and was immediately struck by the peculiar sense of the music having a vertical dimension; not simply the impression that the instruments were positioned around the room in which I was listening to this, but that I was sitting somewhere above them a looking down on them.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
