Jazz Trio Album "Ball Play" runs twisted wraps by Pohjola, Drew Gress and Mark Ferber

New York jazz musicians, pianist Mika Pohjola, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Mark Ferber, are authors to fifteen tracks of trio music on their Ball Play, a release which exemplifies a trend in modern jazz piano trios on the scene, namely a piano-driven engine, with an interactive drummer of freer attitude toward rhythm and blending sounds, and a bassist who provides "whatever is needed for the music" as the saying goes among many sidemen. That is not to say bassists would be slaves, but it does give a hint that a bass player gladly surrenders his rights to independent contribution in favor of the leader-pianist, and provides the functionality with a "hired professional" attitude. Drew Gress, a superb executor and one of the most fertile professionals at the East Coast, belongs to this category here, and the burden is left to Pohjola and Ferber, whose resources and stunning rapport nicely carries the creativity of the album. On the other side, if Gress demonstrated more initiative, it would be away from the games of Pohjola and Ferber, so perhaps this approximately 40-40-20 divided responsibility is a good one after all.

Ball Play opens with the title-track, which is some of the most successful carbon copying of 1960's Paul Bley and Paul Motian (or Barry Altschul) in recent memory. "Closer" and "Footloose" and the 1987 "Notes" albums come to mind. Ball Play continues with a more original-spirited "Two Pages", which repeats and develops a short motive in the first half, and then gradually moves toward a free flow of thought. The standards, "Star Dust", "These Foolish Things" and the Burt Bacharach original "What The World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love" are among the best renditions on the album, and this is where all three musicians are fully engaged in the twisting of the familiar source material. Pohjola's brightest solo contributions can be heard on "Song of Trust" and the strange traditional-oriented "Jazz Blues". An oddity on the album is the Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge song "Ninghe", which is played without alteration from the original.

This earlier mentioned Paul Bley-approach is a bit unusual for Pohjola, a pianist who has the capacity to run his own department of products for an album. Ferber is triggered by a Motian-Jeff Williams-Tom Rainey mode, a good mode for sure, and perhaps this is due to Pohjola's retro-avantgarde approach. And Gress, his impact is next to unnoticeable, but wherever he plays, he does it with taste. This release does, however, impart enjoyable moments and a moodful entirety. Other recommended albums by these artists include Secret of the Castle and Northern Sunrise by Pohjola, the latter featuring Ferber, Steve Wilson and Ben Monder, and Drew Gress' "The Irrational Numbers" with Ralph Alessi, Tim Berne, Tom Rainey and Craig Taborn, who is a pianist roughly in the same box as Pohjola.