Edinburgh Jazz Festival

Dock in Absolute

Piccolo, George Square

Rob Adams

three stars

THE resurgence in popularity of the piano trio, from both a playing and a listening viewpoint, has been a significant development in jazz over the past twenty years. Groups such as EST and The Bad Plus have forged their own highly individual styles out of the original template while many another has stayed closer to the conventional form.

Dock in Absolute differs in that it uses bass guitar rather than double bass. It also favours a classical-rock hybrid and very proficient at it the three musicians from Belgium and Luxembourg are too. They certainly made some new friends and admirers among the late afternoon audience in this intimate circus tent in George Square.

Pianist Jean Philippe Koch is the group’s main composer but shares the music’s focus with the quietly efficient bass guitarist, David Kintziger and the very prominent drummer, Michel Meis. His pieces are often reminiscent of mini piano concertos, with much flamboyant arpeggio playing and cross-handed technique as well as some rather twee gentler themes.

With Meis in his pomp, there’s a tendency towards bombast and after three or four numbers your reviewer began to crave some swinging, blue-noted improvisation and spontaneity. The overriding impression is that the music is so painstakingly worked out and rehearsed that you could go and hear them again tomorrow and there would be little difference between the two performances.

That said, when Koch ventured into a linear investigation the music achieved a genuine sense of lift and their arrangement of a Chinese children’s song, in preparation for their imminent visit to China, was delivered with a sensitivity that should meet with their hosts’ approval.