With "Uma Elmo," Danish guitarist Jakob Bro presents his fifth album as a bandleader for ECM, uniting Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and Spanish drummer Jorge Rossy for the first time in a new trio. The three musicians first met as an ensemble during the recording sessions at the Swiss radio studio in Lugano, where ECM founder Manfred Eicher oversaw the production. The album reinforces London Jazz News' assessment that Bro's music takes its time yet impresses with great depth. Among the standout pieces is the opening track, "Reconstructing a Dream," which captivates with its darkly lyrical atmosphere. With "To Stanko," Bro pays tribute to the late Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, who once included him in his quintet for the ECM album "Dark Eyes." Another piece, "Music for Black Pigeons," is dedicated to a different deceased mentor and owes its title to saxophonist Lee Konitz. Arve Henriksen's quiet, poetic trumpet tone will likely be familiar to listeners from his own ECM album "Cartography" as well as from his projects with Trio Mediaeval and Tigran Hamasyan. Jorge Rossy is internationally acclaimed, particularly for his long-standing collaboration with Brad Mehldau's first trio. DownBeat, in a review of Bro's previous ECM release "Bay of Rainbows," noted that his guitar playing is luminous and his music possesses both hypnotic and dramatic qualities.
