Luminosity is the third album from German jazz pianist Hoefner. This is finely made jazz that sits right in the pocket of the mainstream of contemporary style - a prevalent minor key feel, driving rhythms with more than a little rock feel - that is the long tail of Keith Jarrett's European Quartet. The sound is familiar, but this is not a criticism, because it's also involving.
The story behind Hoefner's third release is that, having decamped from New York City to St. Johns, Newfoundland, he wrote the material in isolation. It is a long and winding road from circumstances to the realization of a creative idea, but there is a palpable, hard focus to the album as a whole, like a steel cylinder around which all the music revolves. Hoefner is not breaking new ground, but carving out new personal territory, and that gravity comes through in the music-making, which has the cumulative satisfaction of passing through a weighty experience and coming out refreshed.
Hoefner is a good player, although his voice is hard to separate from that of numerous peers playing in the post-Jarrett, post-Mehldau landscape. The quartet is sharp, energetic, and intelligent. As a whole, the album has a slightly illusive quality - which is likely a matter of Hoefner's own interior landscape - that makes it hard to pin down but does draw me back to it. *Luminosity* also has the distinct benefit of saxophonist Seamus Blake, who's full sound, expressive force, and unerring improvisational logic make every recording he appears on worth a listen. That this almost sounds like his date is a measure of how well he channels the leader's concepts and values.