For her third ECM album, Israeli pianist Anat Fort augments her long-established trio – with bassist Gary Wang and drummer Roland Schneider – with a special guest: Italian reedman Gianluigi Trovesi. Fort and Trovesi have made a number of appearances together in recent years, to critical acclaim, and Birdwatching, with its lively, bright music, takes their rapport to the next level. There is an alertness and a joyful quality in the playing, both in the articulation of melodies and in the improvised passages. “I’d followed Gianluigi Trovesi on many records over the years,” says Anat, “and always loved his musical spirit.” Fort and Trovesi first played together in duo at Italy’s Novara Festival, after which Gianluigi came to Israel and participated for the first time in concerts with Anat’s trio at the Opera house in Tel-Aviv.

Since recording this award-winning album, Giancarlo Trovesi has gone on to develop a body of work as strong as any on the Italian scene. Here, he performs on a range of reeds (alto and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet, and piccolo), backed by Paolo Damiani on bass and Ettore Fioravanti on percussion. As with his later work, he shows a propensity for folk and Eastern European melodies. For a largely noncommercial player identified with the avant-garde school of Italian jazz, this is a surprisingly accessible outing (although, in all fairness to Trovesi, he has always skirted between conventional and postmodern music). Damiani is given ample solo space, which he uses to great advantage, further strengthening his position as one of Europe's leading bass players. Fioravanti, too, shows some marvelous chops.