Tingvall Trio: Vagen – review

Swedish composer Martin Tingvall's vivaciously rock-powered piano trio have a fanbase all over Europe, and in Dubai and South Africa, too. Now they are aiming to break Britain and the US, as the late Esbjorn Svensson's EST did. This album, their fourth, made the pop charts in Sweden and Germany, and features much of the catchily singable material they played on their UK debut last year. The Spanish-tinged Sevilla splices a relentless pop-piano hook with the kind of airily lyrical countermelody Avishai Cohen might write (an impression reinforced by Tingvall's partnership with fine Cuban bassist Omar Rodriguez Calvo), the title track is a gospelly soul-sermon that builds to a big, chord-punching finale, and Tuc Tuc Man has a frenetic north African dance-energy mixed with rock-piano fireworks. The whirling Shejk Shroder has a Chick Corea-like playfulness, while Tingvall's slower themes have a romantically cinematic, classical grace. But though this group keeps winning jazz awards in Germany, it relegates improvising to brief diversions from general chord-hammering, groove-pursuing, thundering climaxes too often.