Home

Home is Jan Gunnar Hoff’s fourth solo piano album on the 2L label. It is among half a dozen albums recorded by 2L in which Hoff plays either solo or as ensemble leader. I've selected this most recent album because it covers so much musical territory for which I much admire his musicianship and his playing. Whenever I listen to a Jan Gunnar Hoff album, I am drawn in by the creativity of the musical landscape he creates.

Hoff takes some standards (Gershwin's "Summertime" or Mancini's "Moon River" for examples) and makes something entirely unexpected and new from them. Or, he is entirely original and improvisational. Often I've wondered where the planning ended and the improv began in both the standards and his own originals. This is typical of his music-making.

But wherever Hoff is taking us on a given day, it is almost always an escape from the day-to-day. There is nothing ordinary about the musical world he inhabits. I am always swept away, and I am yet again with Home.

The recording by Morten Lindberg is once again a marvel. Full, rich, clear, filled with the air and ambiance of the performance hall yet with immense detail and resolution.

Whenever I listen to a Jan Gunnar Hoff album from 2L Recordings, I always think about that razor’s edge between improvisation and adhering to the original composition. I feel that sometimes with Jan Gunnar Hoff, that he’s riding that whirlwind and just acting as a conduit for some divine inspiration.

After listening to his latest album, Home, I see more of the original composition than usual, but I also wonder the actual ration between the music that’s written down and the music that only exists in the moment. Jan Gunnar Hoff is primarily a romantic composer, and the big sound of his piano will sweep you away with its beauty and thunder and its intuition, but that’s juxtaposed with Hoff’s stunning and emotional performance of standards such as “Moon River” and “Summertime.” That makes Home more of a singular piece, with a singular theme, which shouldn’t surprise you with a 2L Recording.

Strangely enough, the story behind this recording is quite improvisational in spirit. 2L’s Morten Lindberg asked Jan Gunnar Hoff if he wanted to record solo piano works in the Stormen Concert Hall in Bodø, and the duo decided to let the venue dictate the program based on the sonic results. Home was recorded in two days, and it is exactly as I described. A mix of improvisation and standards that are so fluid that you will no longer care about the thought processes behind it all.

That is the magic of Home, of course, that this is music to drift to, music that helps you dislodge the heaviness of the day. Quite honestly, the first three times I listen to Jan Gunnar Hoff’s performance here I fell asleep. Not because it was boring, of course, but because it made me forget about all the problems in the world so I could spend some important me time thinking about nothing. It helps, of course, that the Stormen Concert Hall is a clear and dynamic space, somewhat less warm than the usual Norwegian churches, but Home still emerges as another 2L landmark in sound quality.