Much of this double album is a live rerun (on a 2015 CD and a DVD from 2014) of German pianist Michael Wollny’s last studio album, Nachtfahrten. That it’s released as a “collector’s edition” suggests that Wollny’s fanclub is the target. But the 37-year-old’s gigs are electrifying, and, like his late ACT stablemate Esbjörn Svensson, he churns jazz, rock, pop and classical music together with an originality of vision. Not just a necessity for devotees, then, this disc is a thrilling baptism for Wollny discoverers, too. The Twin Peaks theme Questions in a World of Blue gets a slow-build pop-anthem treatment. Guillaume de Machaut’s 14th-century De Desconfort appears in sombre chords and casual post-bop diversions after a splintery free-improv intro. Eric Schaefer’s Motette No 1 unleashes flying McCoy Tyner-like chords from the leader, and Wollny’s funky When The Sleeper Wakes is an incandescent tour de force, like Svensson’s EST and Keith Jarrett on a gospel surge. The DVD’s music is tamer, but the video smartly catches this supertrio’s rapport.
