The Witmer Trio returns to NativeDSD with their third album titled En Azul (In Blue) from Sound Liaison.  It follows their earlier albums Cuban Fantasy and Free: Soulful Piano Reflections, both NativeDSD listener favorites.

In Blue features many of your favorites including Rhapsody In Blue, New York State of Mind, Moonglow, Carioca. Gone With The Wind and St. Louis Blues – all arranged by pianist and trio leader Cajan Witmer.

Cajan Witmer came up with the idea of recording a collection of songs, with the focus primarily on the melody and have every improvisation and embellishment being inspired by the song itself. Witmer’s almost vocal presentation of the melody and refined melodic improvisations, Slinger’s lyrical touch and strong secure rhythmic feel combined with Kruiswijk’s inventive drum patterns, which on some songs resembles three subtle percussion players instead of one drum set, are fulfilling the task admirably. Cajan Witmer and his companions, bassist Han Slinger and drummer Maarten Kruiswijk, have worked together for 21 years, and the empathy they feel for each other is evident throughout this recording.

Recording Engineer Frans de Rond tells us “When creating the sound stage, we spent a great deal of time getting the balance of the trio as optimal as possible using the ambient microphone stereo pair placed in the ”sweet spot” in Studio 2 at the MCO in Hilversum, Netherlands, before adding the spot microphones. We wanted to create a sound field that was intimate but also with enough depth to have a visual representation of the instruments. In a sense we adopted the same philosophy as Cajan Witmer in his arrangements, we wanted the melodic part of each instrument to stand out but not overshadow the whole, thus the piano and the drums have been given a position in the sound field, not spread out Left to Right as are more common in commercial recordings. The benefit with this approach is that you can actually see the trio in front of you between the speakers, standing left to right, instead of the more common, commercial radio-friendly approach, with the instruments piled on top of each other.”

Cajan Witmer – Piano
Han Slinger – Bass
Maarten Kruijswijk – Drums