"The concert was sold-out. The Doo Bop Club was filled with jazz-digging people... The music was performed very well. It was well-balanced and swung gloriously. It wasn't hard to discover that the musicians were real top class. They were gifted, both technically and musically. They didn't let the music become a goal for itself and a vehicle just to emphasize there technical skills, but they put the music first and that determined what and how much they would play.

Despite that the setting can give an impression that the music, lacking a harmonic instrument, would be thin, you didn't once miss a chordal instrument. This much thanks to Dave Carpenter that, when playing the electric bass, played "walking-bass" and chords at the same time. One of the things that I reacted to was the natural way the Lounge Art Ensemble played and the cooperation and joy they showed. This resulted in a very relaxed performance. They joy from the musicians was also well backed up by the audience.

The second set was distinguished by Erskine, who started to really get things going. On "Twelve" he played one of the most fantastic solos I ever heard. It wasn't a question of playing as much as possible; the music between the beats was most important. He showed us during the whole concert what a mature musician he is.

In all, a high class concert with high class jazz performed by high class musicians."

"Wednesday evening was an improbable evening. If a group like the Lounge Art Ensemble makes a gig here in Jakobstad, the next logical step would be to invite Pavarotti to the Park this summer. Impossible? - maybe... The musicians turned and twisted harmony and rhythm with the obvious certainty that comes out of a total assimilation of the material, like when you rearrange your own home. The interplay between the musicians were excellent. The first thing that got to me was the use of dynamic contrasts in the tunes. Erskine is a master on this, time after time he built an intensity that gripped the listeners extremely, and then in the next step letting the music level out and create some breathing space. Carpenter and Sheppard participated actively in this process, following in intensification when needed and sometimes taking command when they wanted the music to develop in a other way.

Great Jazz often has the best output when the communication between leadership and participative musicians is working. The playing was always a discussion, never a speech.

Erskine's strength as a drummer is more horizontal than vertical - instead of cultivating in one musical niche he is letting the musical width become his identity. It's not often you hear a drummer vary so painlessly between styles in repertoire. It's hard enough to do that between tunes, Erskine is doing it in nearly every tune! From interactive drumming in Elvin Jones-style to accompanying, from 4/4-swing via latin to "free-time"....the difficult suddenly sounds so very simple!

All musicians know their Be-Bop, the ground for modern jazz. Especially the solo-lines of Carpenter are wonderfully permeated of this melodic language. Since the trio neither had guitar or piano to rely on harmonically, Carpenter often took care of both bass lines and chords on his special six-stringed bass, this with an original and very effective technique.

Be-bop has very much in common with Bach's harmonic principles - discord followed almost always by consonant... what the ear relies on as being "normal."

Sheppard is using this language, but just as often he is following a melodic line for the purpose of it, creating in it's way a kind of dissolved harmonic tension. He often uses simple and short motives that he is developing with great inventiveness, sometimes also from arpeggio-cascades in the style that Coltrane "launched" in the beginning of the 60's. When Sheppard played in the latter way Erskine teamed up with African-influenced rhythmic structures. Carpenter stabilized this with pedal-tones, and suddenly I became aware of how strong the jazz of the 60's influenced this generation of musicians.

The whole evening was living in a combination of harmonic tension and fantastic rhythmic drive. When humor came as a bonus in a natural way in a Christmas-medley "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"/"O Christmas Tree," the picture was complete."

"Erskine, who's been playing drums for forty years (he's 44) has a long time been counted on as one of the absolute best drummers on the jazz scene. He has also played with a lot of well-known jazz orchestras like Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson.

I think he finds his ways better off in smaller ensembles like this trio. His virtuous drum-solos are solid as a rock but I'm most impressed by his tasteful and modulated rhythm-patterns behind the other musicians.

Especially his handling of the brushes are worth a chapter of it's own. He is also good on making contact to the audience."

THANK YOU, SCANDINAVIA!!!