For jazz to survive, it must find a place in people's lives. Part of the success of Kind of Blue was the way in which it succeeded in doing precisely that, functioning as either as sophisticated background music for a dinner party or social gathering or as wholly absorbing foreground music – Jimmy Cobb once said he had lost count of the number of people who told him the album sounded best when making love. The Magic and Mystery of the Piano Trio seeks to achieve something similar, both as sophisticated background music and as interesting foreground music. It functions in much the same way as a playlist, with some choice performances by some of Europe's top young piano trios with some fine performances by the likes of Edgar Knecht, now being dubbed ‘the saviour of the German folk song’, Norway's Helge Lien, Finland's Kari Ikonen and Switzerland's Stefan Aeby all contributing excellent performances to a very well-conceived album.