Ingrid and Christine Jensen: Infinitude review – warm, spacious and empathetic

The Guardian | 18 November 2016 | by John Fordham

Ingrid Jensen, the Canadian trumpeter often featured with Maria Schneider, is an understatedly eloquent player with Kenny Wheeler affiliations and a composer of affecting slow-burn themes, as she recently indicated on her short UK tour. This warm, spacious and empathically played album unites her with her saxophonist and composer sister Christine, along with bass, drums and imaginative guitarist Ben Monder, on an all-Jensen tracklist, save for Wheeler’s Old Time and Monder’s Echolalia. The two horns often purr and glide together with expressive anticipation, and Monder is a powerful presence, his guitar lines weaving with Christine’s alto sax on Octofolk, while Old Time gets a rugged Miles-fusion urgency that sparks busier conversations. Monder and Ingrid Jensen float in trance-like freefall on Duo Space before the piece becomes increasingly metallic, Garden Hour is a beautiful slow theme, and Ingrid’s Dots and Braids is an ambient meditation in quietly pealing sounds that becomes a collectively improvised glide. The set drifts occasionally, but the harmonies are subtly mysterious and the group playing a delight.