Florian Ross Trio: Big Fish and Small Pond

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'Big Fish & Small Pond' is the second album of Ross with the instrumentation of piano, bass and percussion. With bassist Dietmar Fuhr and drummer Stéphane Huchard – both also took part in his last quintet CD 'Home & Some Other Place' – he fuses into a musical personality who almost demonstrates the absurdity of the functional division within the band. The question as to why the world needs another piano trio album does not arise for Ross because what matters to him is the music, not instrumentations. With reference to the title of the new album, the pond in which Florian moves is not at all too small for him yet. On the contrary, the piano trio opens up new possibilities for his development. Each tone gets intensity as if, at the respective moment, the CD in its full length would only rotate around this tone. The music of 'Big Fish & Small Pond' stands for itself. It needs no superstructure nor makes any demands on the listener. One can approach it with an open mind, both as an experienced jazz gourmet and as a totally untrained occasional listener who wants to escape from the irksome daily routine through a door which grants him access to a world of beauty and imagination for an hour. For the initiator and leader Florian Ross, however, his CD is associated with a number of other functions as well. Despite all different influences, Ross' music is so pleasant and appealing because these influences are linked in his personality to form a logical unit. His music is not really torn, for the roots of the pianist are even much more diverse. Ross does not play Euro jazz which would bluntly dissociate itself from American jazz, and does not adopt elements of European classical music from a nonchalantly conventional jazzy point of view, but he self-confidently combines European and American elements at places where it would not necessarily be expected. With an open mind, yet in a purposeful manner, Florian Ross draws on two cultures which he combines in his mind without any audible transition to form a playground of imagination. A trio always consists of three persons. For the entire picture of 'Big Fish & Small Pond', Dietmar Fuhr and Stéphane Huchard are of course instrumental as well. 'Big Fish & Small Pond' is an album that gives the listener the opportunity to relax. A jazz CD and yet no jazz CD, a wonderful, colourful, fruitful pond full of music with plenty of real and imagined characters, figures and beings who make each listening session a new experience.

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Track listing:

1. Puddles / Swimm I
2. Lucky For A Quarter
3. Tizzie Whizzie
4. Small Pond / Swim II
5. Obvious
6. Heads Up
7. Compared To What? -Big Fish / Swim III -Petit Paul
8. Pool Boy / Swim IV
9. Madrid
10. Giant Steps
11. My Address Book

Florian Ross Piano
Dietmar Fuhr Bass
Stéphane Huchard Drums