Kjetil Mulelid Trio: What You Thought Was Home
Rune Grammofon
Kjetil Mulelid's keyboard playing in the Norwegian jazz quartet Wako impresses, but his trio's performances offer a fuller accounting of his artistry. In his group with double bassist Bjørn Marius Hegge and drummer Andreas Skår Winther (all three products of the jazz department at the Trondheim Conservatory of Music), Mulelid's piano is the de facto lead and consequently affords the best possible opportunity to savour his refined technique and touch. Though he's in his late twenties, he's been playing since nine and has thus been developing his abilities for close to two decades. That his playing on What You Thought Was Home, the trio's follow-up to its 2017 debut Not Nearly Enough to Buy a House, exemplifies poise and maturity shouldn't therefore come as a major surprise.
Recorded over two days in November 2018, What You Thought Was Home presents a concise, thirty-seven-minute portrait of the trio with eight compositions credited to the pianist and one, “Bruremarsj (Wedding March),” to Hegge. While Mulelid's beguiling pieces certainly flatter him as a composer, it's his playing that recommends the release most. Stylistically, it inclines more towards Jarrett than Cecil Taylor, the Norwegian evidencing a lyrical, impressionistic sensibility in these performances.
The sensitivity of his touch is evident in the opening title cut, whose folk character's deepened by Winther's rustling hand bells. Elevated by a lovely harmonic progression in its melodies, this subtly moving performance is followed by the comparatively jaunty “Folk Song,” which swings in a vaguely boppish manner, its title notwithstanding. Whereas an understated gospel feel permeates the reverent “Bruremarsj (Wedding March),” the leader's expansive playing lends “When Winter Turns Into Spring” ebullience. His playing in “Far Away” exudes a touching, wistful quality, the refinement of his attack fully evident in this solo performance (here and during “Waltz for Ima,” vocalizations accompanying the piano can't help but call to mind Jarrett and Glenn Gould).
The nine settings generally eschew clear-cut head-solos-head structures; instead, the music develops fluidly, with solos surfacing organically out of the composition (consider, for example, the ease with which Hegge's solo emerges from the fabric of “Waltz for Ima” before folding back in). While the piano is, as mentioned, by default the lead instrument, Mulelid's partners hardly constitute an impersonal backdrop; on the contrary, the impression created is of three participants equally engaged in the product of their interactions.October 2019