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Track List

1 Ball Play 05:34
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
2 Two Pages 10:37
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
3 The True Crest 07:18
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
4 Eclectic Conspiracy Mode 09:07
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
5 These Foolish Things 03:05
    by Eric Maschwitz, Jack Strachey (Boosey and Hawkes, Inc.)
6 Song of Trust 02:59
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
7 A Sunny Day 03:38
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
8 Star Dust 04:23
    by Hoagy Carmichael, Paris Mitchell (EMI Mills Music, Inc.)
9 Humpty Dumpty 00:45
    by Chick Corea (Litha Music)
10 Jazz Blues 03:57
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
11 Concentracznyi 05:51
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
12 Minor Question 02:56
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
13 The Ice That Breaks 04:51
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
14 Old and Grumpy 05:56
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
15 Ninghe 04:32
    by Xavier Montsalvatge (Southern Music Co.)
16 Movements in Style 03:19
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
17 Sophisticated Lady 04:46
    by Duke Ellington (EMI Mills Music, Inc.)
18 Norwegian Summer 05:06
    by Mika Pohjola (Mika Music)
19 What the World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love 03:42
    by Burt Bacharach (Casa David)

Total Time: 92:22

About Ball Play

A collaboration with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Mark Ferber, pianist Mika Pohjola offers a follow-up to his Sound of Village duo improvisations. Pohjola features a free jazz vein of the 1960s, known as proprietary territory of Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Paul Bley and Rashied Ali. Coupled with original compositions by Pohjola, Xavier Montsalvatge and Burt Bacharach, Ball Play is a one-hour long enjoyment which naturally spans several decades of musical expression.

Ball Play opens with the title-track ... continues with a more original-spirited Two Pages, which repeats and develops a short motive in the first half, and then gradually moves toward a free flow of thought. The standards, Star Dust, These Foolish Things and the Burt Bacharach original What The World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love are among the best renditions on the album, and this is where all three musicians are fully engaged in the twisting of the familiar source material. Pohjola's brightest solo contributions can be heard on "Song of Trust" and the strange traditional-oriented Jazz Blues. An oddity on the album is the Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge song Ninghe, which is played without alteration from the original.

Credits

Mika Pohjola - piano
Drew Gress - bass
Mark Ferber - drums

Articles about Ball Play

OPINION: Jazz Trio Album "Ball Play" runs twisted wraps by Pohjola, Drew Gress and Mark Ferber

New York jazz musicians, pianist Mika Pohjola, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Mark Ferber, are authors to fifteen tracks of trio music on their Ball Play, a release which exemplifies a trend in modern jazz piano trios on the scene, namely a piano-driven engine, with an interactive drummer of freer... Read