When the Italian virtuoso Stefano Bollani plays piano, the word play applies in its widest senses, and the title of this fine transatlantic session (Americans Bill Frisell and Mark Turner augment Bollani’s Danish rhythm section) could hardly be a better description of his methods. While it would be difficult for the whole album to live up to the delicious opening calypso, Easy Healing, (in which Turner’s sax floats over Frisell’s softly skewed chords, and the melody is formed by a lovely piano-guitar unison), this is a warmly expressive encounter between a close-knit trio and two guests they’d never previously met, and the frequently genre-hopping Bollani freely revels in his straight-ahead jazz. The beboppish No Pope No Party is like a Monk tune played by a cool–school band. In the impressionistic 12-minute Vale, Bollani is in Bill Evans mood and Turner is at his most probing, while, in the piano-guitar duet Teddy, Frisell shows his skill with harmonics and his early schooling as a quiet jazz swinger. Bollani’s vivacious soloing provides many of the highlights, never more so than in the quicksilver title track.
