Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry: Our Daily Bread album review — contemplative and spiritual

The ECM label’s emphasis on melody, shifting textures and gently unfolding moods occasionally slips into pleasant background noise. Although rhythms remain subdued on Our Daily Bread, having saxophonist Joe Lovano as lead voice means that emotions are made of sterner stuff. Add in thoughtful compositions and the subtle interplay of his established working band Trio Tapestry and this all-original set engages throughout.

The album opens with “All Twelve” and pianist Marilyn Crispell unaccompanied and delicately extemporising on Lovano’s 12-tone theme. Drummer Carmen Castaldi adds to the contemplative mood with a soft throb of mallets, drums and piano intertwine, and then Lovano, phrasing at a slant, enters with an upward sweep of airy tenor sax. Castaldi, a Lovano associate since his teenage years, embellishes the music with his own poetic touch, and Crispell’s spacious voicings and confident support ensure the absence of a bass is scarcely noticed.

“Grace Notes” comes next, introduced by the solitary resonance of Castaldi’s gongs. Piano enters with a rolling ostinato a minute in, cueing Lovano’s spirited meditation on the eastern European tarogato, a sonic blend of clarinet and soprano sax. “Le Petit Opportun” is a ballad with a tranquil melody and poised piano support. The title track channels spiritual John Coltrane, but bears Lovano’s unmistakable stamp.

Elsewhere, gongs introduce “Rhythm Spirit”; Lovano answers their call immediately and the piece smoulders to a high. The unaccompanied and unhurried “One for Charlie”, a blues-tinged saxophone homage to the late bassist Charlie Haden, celebrates a musical relationship that stretched back decades. And “The Power of Three” elaborates three well-chosen notes through the graceful collaboration of this empathetic band.

“Crystal Ball” is the closer, a ballad theme with lines that surprise. It completes an attractive set that find Lovano’s Trio Tapestry in tranquil form, capturing the intricacies of spiritual meditation and prayer.

★★★★☆

‘Our Daily Bread’ is released by ECM