Like many of his European contemporaries, Danish drummer Stefan Pasborg refuses to confine himself to any one part of the musical forest. His day job with the rabble-rousing Ibrahim Electric trio is all about the grooves, while his own horns and drums ensemble Odessa 5 bridges nearly a century of jazz – from traditional New Orleans to downtown New York.
Here Pasborg is in a spontaneous duo with pianist Carsten Dahl, recorded live at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen. Dahl's forcefully rhythmic playing make it, at times, almost a percussion duet, veering between improvised grooves and semi-abstraction. But there are moments of lyricism, not least the concluding standard, Blame It On My Youth, which gives this hard-edged set the softest of landings.
