Kristina Barta Trio, Edinburgh review: ‘Virgin In Berlin delivered a hook I found myself whistling during the interval’

An influential figure in Czech jazz making her Scottish debut at the St Bride’s Centre as part of Edinburgh Jazz Festival’s "SPARK: Jazz from Czech” strand, pianist Kristina Barta with double-bassist Peter Korman and drummer Marek Urbánek proved a highly empathetic unit.

Barta’s tightly contained renderings of her often lyrical compositions suggested thoughtful, at times intense explorations of the material. Her opening number, Quit This Place, was an example, with its tentative introduction then an elegant, almost baroque melody that intensified steadily, drums taking a rolling break, before she folded things neatly to a close. Similarly, Break Through Some Border saw her almost tentative seeming piano deliberations take on terse chording before opening out expansively.

Impro D19, apparently inspired by Covid, was a solemn, stealthy business, piano and bass initially muttering over squeaks and scratches from Urbánek’s cymbals before the tune shaped itself into a stealthy, inexorable progression over bass pulse and rattling toms.

Barta’s development and improvisation over bass and drum drive in a subsequent piece reminded me of the late Esbjörn Svensson Trio with its taut, vivacious energy, while Virgin In Berlin delivered a stately, almost pastoral hook that I found myself whistling during the interval. And despite the unprepossessing connotations of its title, Never Ending Shit opened with a funky strut that took on an energetically boppish excursion of its own.

Drawing towards a close, the trio’s only cover was the warm-toned and increasingly jubilant roll of the Keith Jarrett classic, Country, before a composition inspired by childbirth, from Barta’s album due next year – a collaboration with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, introduced a glowing melody, Korman’s bass running eloquently through it, which slipped into a delicate, characteristically pensive conclusion.