Joe Lovano and his “Polish Conspirators”

Cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of DL Media Music)

When I first learned about the release of the ECM album Homage led by tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and the Marcin Wasilewskl Trio, the leader’s name rang a bell, which I could not quite place. It turns out that he participated in the ECM Swept Away album led by bassist Marc Johnson and pianist Eliane Elias, which I had written about during my Examiner.com days in an article dated September 18, 2012. I described the music on that album as “an introspective quietude, rather than a more superficial retreat into ‘easy listening.’”

Introspection definitely prevails over the five of the six tracks of Lovano tunes on Homage. Possibly because his trio players are Polish, the album begins with “Love in The Garden” by Polish composer Zbigniew Seifert. This basically sets the mood for the Lovano tracks that follow. It would be fair to say that the spirit of Swept Away returns in this new release. Lovano is definitely right at home with introspection. On each track he says his piece with embellishments that never exaggerate the frills. This is just the sort of understatement that one often encounters on ECM releases and encourages focus on the part of the attentive listener.

Those encounters are due, for the most part, to the production efforts of Manfred Eicher. Lovano composed the title track of the album to celebrate Eicher’s 80th birthday. In that respect, this is a landmark, not only of Eicher but also of that distinctively subdued approach to invention that one encounters so frequently not only in Lovano’s work but also on so many other ECM albums.