US pianist Marilyn Crispell and Swedish bassist Anders Jormin filter their decades of musical experience and improvisational instinct into Memento, their debut duo recording. Combining original compositions with four freely created pieces, the album focuses on the universal themes of memory and loss.
Crispell, recently honored with a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master award, first met Jormin at a Stockholm festival in 1992. It left a lasting mark on her musical thinking. “When I heard Anders playing, it touched a chord in me that resonated strongly,” she recalls. Jormin, a longtime member of the Bobo Stenson Trio, has collaborated with Tomasz Stańko, Charles Lloyd and Don Cherry. He has recorded many albums…
Tag Archive: Marilyn Crispell
Given Marilyn Crispell’s moody, evocative albums on the ECM label with Joe Lovano and under her own name, and her two subdued albums from last year (one with guitarist Jakob Bro and the other with Danish drummer Michala Østergaard-Nielsen), you’d be forgiven for forgetting her noisier roots. The pianist came to prominence in the ‘80s, playing with avant-garde titan Anthony Braxton, and her first album as a leader, 1983’s Spirit Music, features free violinist Billy Bang. Crispell may have worked mellower territory in the ensuing years, but Live at the Hungry Brain, documenting a Chicago record-store performance from 2023, proves that she hasn’t left the fire behind.
Working with the trio of Jason Stein on bass clarinet, bassist Damon Smith and drummer…