The partnership between Stenson and Jormin goes back to the 1980s, in both the trio format and also in rhythm sections with Charles Lloyd and Tomasz Stańko. The younger Swedish drummer Jon Fält is a more recent addition to the line-up, but as a trio they’ve had a decade or so working together on and off, and it shows in the cohesion and flair included here. Stenson has an extraordinary stylistic range from the free jazz anger of his early 1970s Garbarek sides to the almost baroque control of his work with Stańko, and much of that range is included in this set that stretches from the Cuban title-track to neoclassical forays into interpretations of Bartók, Mompou and Satie via originals by himself and Jormin. The bassist is almost two musical personalities, both on show in his own ‘Doubt Thou The Stars’, which has lyrical arco passages and the kind of free-flowing melodic pizzicato improvisation that only the finest Scandinavian bassists seem to be able to create. Satie’s ‘Élégie’ has the leisurely pace of the average Tord Gustavsen track, but it builds with a depth and intensity the Norwegian seldom manages. The crystal clear right-hand piano lines cunningly suggest choices not taken as well as the course that is finally charted, as Stenson somehow hints at what he might have played as well as what he does. This is a recording that demands serious listening and attention, not least because that is what we can hear happening in the studio as the tracks are being put down. The interplay is complex, yet relaxed. The collectively improvised ‘Kalimba Impressions’ built out of a simple ostinato pattern is proof of this – not least when Stenson takes a sudden harmonic turn away from the prevailing single mode, and is adeptly followed by Jormin and nudged back into line. Fält plays a lamellophone-like set of tones mirroring the pattern, but then picks this up rhythmically on the kit, before returning to the woody, clicking patterns of the opening. The whole piece is magical, and original, and that applies to the bulk of the album.