Hi-Res Downloads

96kHz/24-bit FLAC, ECM 2420 470 8937 (supplied by www.highresaudio.com)

Jazz pianist Vijay Iver’s been busy of late: having changed label from ACT to ECM last year, he’s managed to put out three albums, of which this is the latest, as well as being appointed a Professor of the Arts at Harvard. Here he rejoins with long-term travelling companions Stephan Crump on double-bass and Marcus Gilmore wielding the sticks – the three have been playing together for over a decade – for a set combining Iver’s takes on some jazz classics as well as self-compositions. Iver and company pay tribute to Monk, Coltrane and Strayhorn with impressive takes on ‘Work’, ‘Countdown’ and ‘Blood Count’ respectively, but it’s in the original pieces that there’s the strongest sense of musicians who know each other well both locking together and playing off each other. It’s all recorded with typical ECM clarity by label founder Manfred Eicher. AE

Sound Quality: 90%

Hi-Fi News Lab Report

While the piano occupies very little of this 96kHz recording’s available bandwidth, the ‘slap’ of percussion does prompt bursts of ultrasonic energy [as in the title track, see Graph]. Distortion/compression from the cymbal mic? PM