Luís Vicente Trio (PT)

Luís Vicente has invited two of the leading lights of contemporary Portuguese jazz to join his trio, which he has formed with the aim of delving deeper into the mysteries of written music and giving improvisations a breath of fresh air. After experiments with Hamid Drake, John Dikeman and William Parker, Vicente returns to his flexible writing style on the trio's latest album, Come Down Here. The album's material is written for two fellow musicians, Gonçalo Almeida and Pedro Melo Alves, who are at home in the abstract and free-music trends that shape the trumpeter's musical concept. They play a constant game of approaching and retreating from the familiar notions of rhythm, structure and melody, both compositions and improvisations going to extremes and escaping the grip of convention time and again.