Beamo is already the seventh album of the Polish pianist-composer Leszek Możdżer, Swedish double bass player Lars Danielsson, and Israeli percussionist Zohar Fresco. This trio performed together for the first time in Warsaw in July 2024, and since then, established an intimate and highly melodic dynamic. The new album was recorded at Monochrom Studio in Gniewoszów, Poland, in September 2023.
Beamo opens a new chapter in the trio’s musical journey as the trio experiments with tonality and incorporates subtle Middle Eastern tonalities and scales into its European, classic, acoustic jazz piano aesthetics. Możdżer, the trio’s leading composer, redefines the conventions established by 17th and 18th-century masters like Johann Sebastian Bach and Jean-Philippe Rameau, and breaks free from the «painful pixelation of music, reduced to twelve obligatory tones», i.e., the equal temperament system. He plays on three grand pianos with unique tunings: one at the modern standard of A = 440 Hz, one at A = 432 Hz, and a third in a decaphonic tuning, dividing the octave into 10 equal intervals. This approach doesn’t abandon tonality but reshapes it, creating a tonal instability that is both intriguing and elusive, echoing Early Music’s rich and imperfect tones.
Danielsson anchors these distinct tonalities together with the singing, resonant voice of his double bass. He plays the viola da gamba on «Decaphonesca» (penned with Możdżer) with the decaphonic tuning, and his «Catusella» references his own piece «Asta» that opened the trio’s debut album (The Time, Outside Music, 2005), now with Możdżer playing differently tuned pianos. Fresco provides a subtle yet deep and intricate rhythmic foundation that expands the sonic horizons of the trio beyond the European, classical-tinged landscapes, and his delicate, wordless vocals introduce a sensual dimension to the trio’s sound. His «Jacob’s Ladder» is one of the most beautiful pieces.
Beamo offers twelve original pieces of Możdżer, Danielsson, and Fresco and ends with a surprising cover of Depeche Mode’s synth-pop «Enjoy the Silence», transformed as a touching ballad (the trio covered before Niravana’s iconic «Smells Like Teen Spirit» as well as compositions of Polish composers Witold Lutosławski and Krzysztof Komeda). Each piece is a sort of clever, playful, and quite often enigmatic musical game that highlights the trio’s rich languages and its profound, conversational rapport. But, still, the trio’s music is rooted in European introspective lyricism, with a necessary, generous touch of melancholia.
Eyal Hareuveni
Leszek Możdżer (Fazioli piano (A = 440 Hz equal temperament), Steinway piano (A = 432 Hz equal temperament), Östlind & Almquist piano (A = 440 Hz decaphonic tuning)), Lars Danielsson (double bass, cello, viola da gamba), Zohar Fresco (frame drums, percussion, vocals)
