“[When I perform], I can [as well] hide in the background as say something. I give myself the freedom to do both. I expect the same from the people I play with. I want them to follow their ideas. What they believe in,” said Jakob Bro in a recent podcast prepared by ECM. When he starts playing together with others, the Danish guitarist focuses on trust and freedom. This approach requires finding musical partners with the greatest skills and sense of the art. Such are the artists who will perform with Bro works recorded on the albums Returnings from 2018 and Uma Elmo from 2021 during the Wrocław concert. 

Bro met Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen for the first time just before recording Uma Elmo. This musician is mainly associated with the breathy, soft and warm tone of the trumpet, which can be heard, for example, on albums released by ECM or ACT. Henriksen has produced very diverse music, including experimental and avant-garde – for example with the band Supersilent. The third player in the Bro trio will be the US-born drummer Marilyn Mazur – a volcano of energy and an aesthete of sound. She became famous primarily for her collaboration with Miles Davis in the 1980s, but she was also a pillar of Jan Garbarek’s band for a long time. Mazur still regularly releases original albums, full of various inspirations, combining ethnic music and free improvisation with jazz rock. She has known the drummer Bro for a long time – they began recording and performing over a decade ago.

So far, the three have played only one concert together, which took place a year ago in the Danish city of Fredericia. Is it possible to make assumptions about where Bro, Henriksen and Mazur will go this time? The three artists will probably slowly immerse themselves in an impressionistic landscape. Looped guitar sounds will shimmer, drum cymbals will quiver, and subtle trumpet phrases will wander like a shadow. There will be electronic glows here and there, coming we know not where from ...