Canossa by Jasper Van't Hof

Canossa

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Canossa

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Audio CD (September 14, 1999)

Original Release Date: September 14, 1999

Label: Intuition

Catalog Number: 3238

Reader Reviews
Jasper Van't Hof is a Dutch pianist/keyboard player of some note in Europe. He's not much known on this side of the Atlantic. Too Bad. He's quite a player. A frequent collaborator with the Swedish bassist Bo Stief, he has also played with Charlie Mariano, Bob Malach, and Ernie Watts, three players who favor an elegiac approach to the saxophone. Indeed, on Canossa, Watts comes across very much as a more muscular version of Jan Garbarek. The first cut, the longest on the disc at over 17 minutes, sets the mood for some very atmospheric jazz. It has a definite hymn-like feel, courtesy of a chant-oriented melody, a quite convincing and intriguing synthesized faux choir, Stief's Eberhard Weber-styled e-bass, and Watts' haunting sax meditations. This fits in beautifully with the exquisite packaging, featuring a collage of a gorgeous painting full of Medieval Christian symbolism and that cool font where t's look like pluses and o's have crosses inside them. Unfortunately, at least for me, this mood isn't sustained. What we get instead on two of the central cuts is plodding, synth-heavy, noodling. I never thought I say it, but where is Bill Laswell when you need him? The mood returns briefly, and beautifully, on "Pink Lady," with Ernie Watts at his most burnished, and Van't Hof laying down some very tasty synth washes over which he plays a quite attractive piano solo, and continues, nicely tweaked in a carnival direction, on "Cogito Ergo Sum." "First Day," an attractive ballad, seems a little out of place, but Ernie Watts plays so beautifully that its inclusion can be forgiven. "Transmit" and "Clean People," on the other hand, are a difficult listen. Somebody, please, tell Van't Hof that the torpid, mind-numbing bad ELO vibe just ain't cutting it. Not even a splendid Watts solo can redeem the isipidity of "Clean Peopel." There's probably some ironic Post-Modern thing happening here, but if so, it's lost on me. "On the Border," hardly in the mood of "Canossa," at least has a pretty cool, Donald Fagin-like groove, and Watts plays some killer sax. Actually, this is a very fine album, except for the two losers in the middle. One-half star off for each.

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