Niels Lan Doky

“River Of Time”

(Inner Adventures – IA002)

Niels Lan Doky – piano, keyboards, percussion, programming
Tobias Dall –  acoustic bass
Niclas Bardeleben- drums

Born in 1963 of Danish and Vietnamese parentage the pianist and composer Niels Lan Doky studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston before subsequently settling in New York.

He made his recording début as a leader in 1986 and has since released over thirty albums in his own name on a variety of record labels (among them Steeplechase, Milestone, Blue Note and Verve)  as well as working with a veritable ‘who’s who’ of leading American jazz musicians.

Doky also spent time living and working in both Paris and London before returning to his native Denmark in 2013. He has never abandoned his Scandinavian roots and has consciously cultivated this aspect of his musical personality in his playing and writing.

With this in mind one of Doky’s closest musical alliances was with the great Danish bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (1946-2005). ‘NHOP’ is perhaps best known for his work with pianist Oscar Peterson but he appeared on Doky’s début album and also featured on several others.

Doky has also worked closely with his younger brother, bassist and composer Chris Minh Doky, who was born in 1989. Chris has worked frequently as a sideman with Niels’ groups and the pair have also co-led two albums as The Doky Brothers.

A more comprehensive overview of Doky’s career and his extensive discography can be found at his website http://www.nielslandoky.com

“River Of Time” features Doky’s current working trio featuring two young Danish musicians, bassist Tobias Dall and drummer Niclas Bardeleben, the latter a bandleader in his own right. A programme comprised entirely of Doky originals seeks to achieve a synthesis between Nordic reflectiveness and melancholia and the swing and vitality of the American jazz tradition.

Effectively the album consists of eight new compositions recorded during late 2019 and early 2020 at Inner Adventures Studio in Elsinore, Denmark. The ‘bonus’ section of the CD includes a live recording from a jazz festival in Spain in the summer of 2019. There are also “Radio Edits” of four of the studio items.

The album gets off to a lively start with the Latin-esque “Pink Buddha”, which features Doky on a variety of ‘additional instruments’, these being glockenspiel, bongos, timbales, shaker, triangle and synth pads. Allied to the bass and drums of his younger colleagues the additional percussive elements help to create a buoyant groove that fuels Doky’s breezy piano soloing, the best moments being when he utilises his indisputably impressive technique to dig a little more deeply below the sunny surface.  Doky deploys the glockenspiel and synth to provide splashes of melody, colour and texture. Dall and Bardeleben both impress with their respective bass and drum features as the album gets off to an invigorating start.

There’s also a subtle Latin element about the more languid and lyrical title track. Once again Doky places the focus firmly on melody, and this is reflected in Dall’s extended bass solo. The pianist then takes over, stretching out more expansively, but never wandering too far away from the central theme.

Unaccompanied piano introduces “Greasy Sauce”, a piece whose title suggests something a little more robust and which delivers on that promise. A highly versatile pianist, capable of playing in a variety of jazz idioms Doky adopts a more percussive sound on a piece that edges closer to the sound of American jazz and the blues. Once again the leader is generous in terms of the solo space he allots to the excellent Dall, who responds accordingly. Meanwhile Doky himself delivers his most fluent and exciting soloing of the set thus far.

“Sita’s Mood” is a languid ballad with a gorgeously melodic theme that features Doky at his most lyrical. The pianist receives sympathetic support from Dall and Bardeleben, the latter’s deft brushwork is delicate and nuanced, but also provides a subtly propulsive sense of swing.

The title of “Are You Coming With Me?” suggests a possible answer to Pat Metheny’s famous composition “Are You Going With Me?”, the guitarist being just one of the famous names on Doky’s CV. The pianist has always had a knack for writing catchy, riff based tunes and this energetic romp is no exception with Bardeleben’s tambourine propelled groove fuelling Doky’s joyous soloing. The drummer also enjoys something of a feature as the piece barrels along.

“World Peace” returns the trio to ballad mode, the music spacious and initially slightly sombre in mood, almost hymn like. Doky’s delicate pianism is augmented by Dall’s typically rich and melodic bass and Bardeleben’s understated mallet rumbles. The pace quickens slightly mid tune, indicative perhaps of some faint hope of reaching the unattainable.

The fiercely swinging “Houllebecq” raises the energy levels once more, with Doky riffing percussively above a walking bass groove before stretching out more expansively. It represents a good example of Doky’s prodigious technique, honed in the highly competitive environment of New York City. Dall and Bardeleben are also featured in an extended bass and drum interlude, with the latter circumnavigating his kit, supported by Dall’s still ongoing bass walk.

Written before the Covid-19 outbreak and presumably recorded in January “Hope 2020” represents a gently uplifting conclusion to the main body of the album. It features Doky’s subtly gospel tinged piano, Dall’s melodic bass and the sound of programmed drums augmented by Bardeleben’s cymbal fills. As on the earlier “River Of Time” the drum programming sounds remarkably natural and organic and not at all synthetic or electronic – unless they scan the credits most listeners probably won’t even register it.

We move into ‘bonus territory’ with a live recording of “Nature Of The Business”, recorded at the Jazz San Javier festival in Spain in July 2019. The gospel flavours here are even more overt, with Keith Jarrett’s work in this vein an obvious reference point. Doky stretches out above a subtly propulsive bass and drum groove with Bardeleben’s highly creative cymbal work a particularly distinctive component. The drummer subtly enjoys something of a feature of his own on a performance that reveals just what an exciting proposition this trio is live. The Spanish crowd respond with vociferous enthusiasm.

The CD also includes four “Radio Edits” of earlier tracks, namely “Pink Buddha”, “Are You Coming With Me?”, Hope 2020” and “Greasy Sauce”. These don’t differ significantly from their counterparts and therefore don’t justify additional individual analysis.

There is much to admire and enjoy about the “River Of Time” CD. The playing by Doky and his two younger colleagues is excellent throughout, and as a composer Doky exhibits an eye for both a good melody and a good riff.

Nevertheless I felt a little underwhelmed overall, the music is sometimes a little bit too smooth and ‘pretty’ and can slip too easily into blandness. In addition to his roles as musician and composer Doky also fulfilled the functions of engineer and producer and occasionally the album sounds a little overproduced. One suspects that this is a trio whose undoubted abilities would best be enjoyed and appreciated in a live environment, as the Spanish festival recording suggests.

In terms of the blend between Scandinavian and American influences the latter seems to predominate overall, thanks to the prevailing sense of swing. In a blindfold test I wouldn’t have picked this out as being a ‘Scandi-jazz’ recording.  It’s very different from Tord Gustavsen, Bobo Stenson and even Phronesis, although some of that trademark ‘Nordic melancholy’ is present in the ballads.

An undeniably good, but nevertheless somewhat frustrating, album.

 

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