Track Listing

1. Deep As Love
2. Graceful Touch
3. IGN
4. Melted Matter
5. At A Glance
6. Song Of Yearning
7. Turning Point
8. Interlude
9. Where Breathing Starts
10. Going Places
11. Your Eyes
12. Graceful Touch, Variation
13. Song Of Yearning (Solo)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9737 in Music
• Released on: 2003-04-08
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Astrological stars!
Other reviewers have articulated appreciation for TG (and the trio)'s work so well. Thank you. This music is soothing, healing and enlightening - simultaneously familiar yet unique. I'll just add for those of an astrological bent that I found it interesting that astrology seems to support TG's aesthetic: with Venus (planet associated with one's sense of beauty and harmony)conjunct Neptune (higher transpersonal octave of Venus) in Scorpio (music as eroticism per TG's words) opposite Saturn (planet associated with ascetic discipline and essential structure of self) in Taurus (a sign associated with music, particularly the voice - metaphor for TG's spare while melodic sensibility). This is certainly an incomplete reading, but an interesting metaphor for the taut balance TG achieves between a freely sensuous, personal, upclose feeling and an austere spacious sensibility.

Intriguing, yet lacking
The reviewers who likened Gustavsen to Keith Jarret have it right, I think. Gustavsen copies a lot of Jarret's rhythmic and melodic motifs, although "melodic" is a bit of a stretch here as there are no real melodic themes that are developed through a piece. There's no dissonance, nothing too create even a tiny bit of tension that could be resolved to create something more than a meandering flow of pleasant sound.

Gustavsen here reminds me of some of Jarret's more unstructured (and, I hesitate to say, noodling) improvisations in his longer pieces, and as one reviewer notes, there's a little similarity to "My Song". As for the Bill Evans comparison- not even close. Evans could take a well-known melody and develop it into something exquisite yet still recognizable. His own compositions were infinitely more sophisticated harmonically and melodically than what we hear from Gustavsen.

Where the Evans comparison is apt, I think, is in the classical roots that permeate both musicians' work. Evans was strongly influenced both melodically and harmonically by Chopin, and Gustavsen seems to find more of his inspiration in the tone poems of a Grieg or perhaps Sibelius, though not to the extent that Evans incorporated Chopin in his harmonic conception. In short, this is an intriguing piece of background or easy listening music, but I'm not hearing the kind of complexity or sustained development that draws the listener in and involves him or her with the music.

Placid and Ever So Smooth
My introduction to Tord Gustavsen came via The Ground which was highly recommended in a respected national magazine known for its elevated tone and sophisticated taste. I liked that CD well enough, but I like Changing Places even more. It is indeed mellow, placid, and ever so smooth and it may even be sleep-inducing as one reviewer suggested, but it is pure bliss from the first note to the last.
What makes Changing Places so good is not just the relaxing vibe, but the way it flows so evenly, each tune blending seamlessly into the one that follows. I have no favorites here, I like the whole CD. Its just the perfect background music for relaxing on your porch with a favorite beverage or for calming your nerves while doing paperwork at the office.
Changing Places has me eagerly looking forward to the next Tord Gustavsen Trio CD. If you like laid-back pianocentric jazz, then you should enjoy this as well.