Windflower Ayumi Tanaka, Thomas Morgan, Thomas Strønen

• 1 Windflower 04:44
• 2 La Source 05:55
• 3 From Us, To You 04:43
• 4 Tree of Stars 05:10
• 5 Weaving 03:41
• 6 The Sea Is Still 02:36
• 7 Spring 04:20
• 8 Driftwood 06:04
• 9 The Dissolving Sun 02:41
• Total Runtime 39:54

Info for Windflower

Windflower introduces a new trio, with the Japanese pianist Ayumi Tanaka, the US bassist Thomas Morgan and the Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen. Three players well-known to followers of musical directions at ECM, they shape their music together, weaving abstract and lyrical ideas in pieces whose flow and energy are influenced by chamber music and jazz, and by sensibilities of East, West and North.

The fragile windflower, or anemone, symbolises the transience of beauty in several cultures, and the need to grasp and cherish the moment. Here, free balladry is to the fore in an album whose luminous music features eight spontaneously composed tracks and an unconstrained arrangement of Tanaka’s tune “La Source”. For Ayumi and her fellow players, the means of creation is secondary to the destination. “I want to compose music which sounds like an improvisation,” she has said, “and to improvise music that sounds like it has been written…” Her life story has addressed both modes, playing classical musical and contemporary composition in Japan before heading to Oslo in 2011, where Misha Alperin became a mentor as she began to explore ‘Nordic’ routes to jazz expressivity.

Tanaka’s originality has been showcased in Thomas Strønen’s projects including the albums Lucus and Off Stillness with the ensemble Time Is A Blind Guide and the exploratory trio heard on the 2018 recording Bayou (with Strønen, Tanaka and Marthe Lea). Her own album, Subaqueous Silence, issued in 2021, was internationally praised for its creativity, ascetic rigour and sense of space. “Tanaka makes every note count,” UK magazine The Wire observed. “Not one is unfelt.”

Thomas Morgan made his ECM debut with the John Abercrombie Quartet in 2008, and since then has appeared in many contexts, among the most notable being his part in Masabumi Kikuchi’s trio alongside Paul Motian on the 2012 released recording Sunrise. Besides his ongoing associations with Jakob Bro and Bill Frisell, Morgan has contributed to further piano trios led by Craig Taborn and Giovanni Guidi, attesting to the bass player’s versatility and adaptability. Like Charlie Haden or Gary Peacock before him, he can access the essential in each improvisational setting, and to contribute to it, highly supportive but also with a strong voice of his own. The way in which Morgan threads a melodic bass line through the gently glittering phrasing of the piano on “Tree of Stars” is among this album’s highlights.

Thomas Strønen’s recent releases include the album Relations exploring new threads of connectivity in a programme of lockdown duets with Chris Potter, Craig Taborn, Sinikka Langeland and Jorge Rossy. He also collaborated with John Surman on Words Unspoken, released in 2024. Strønen’s association with ECM dates from 2005 and the ensemble Parish whose members included Bobo Stenson and Fredrik Ljungkvist. Subsequently, in the group Food, with musical partner Iain Ballamy, Strønen proposed fresh approaches to layered, improvised percussion. On Windflower the stark patterning of Strønen’s drums on the title track opens up a new space in which dynamic interaction can take place, as the music unfolds.

The Tanaka/Morgan/Strønen trio played together for the first time at Oslo’s Nasjonal Jazz Scene Victoria in September 2024. The potential of the combination was immediately apparent, and album producer Manfred Eicher proposed that they bring the project to Studios la Buissonne in Southern France, where Windflower was recorded in May 2025.

Windflower is released on the eve of a European tour. Dates include USF Cultural Centre, Bergen, Norway (September 11), Kabuso, Øystese, Norway (September 12), Le Petit faucheux, Tours, France (September 16), Stadtgarten, Cologne, Germany (September 23), Nova Express, Mechelen, Belgium (September 24)AMR, Genève, Switzerland September 25

Ayumi Tanaka, piano
Thomas Morgan, double bass
Thomas Strønen, drums

Recorded May 2025, Studios La Buissonne, Pernes les Fontaines

Ayumi Tanaka
is a Japanese pianist and composer who began playing music at the age of three, influenced by classical, and later on, Nordic improvisational musicians and her own mentor, the late Misha Alperin at the Norwegian Academy of Music where she studied from 2011 until 2016. Starting in 2018, Ayumi began collaborating with Manfred Eicher at ECM Records which culminated in her Trio’s album “Subaqueous Silence”. Currently, she is performing globally with different ensembles as well as developing her own solo music.

Thomas Morgan
Born in 1981 in Hayward, California, Thomas is an American jazz bassist known for his exceptionally lyrical, understated style and his rare ability to make even complex improvisational settings feel weightless and conversational.

Originally a classical cellist, he switched to double bass at age 14 and quickly developed an unusually refined sense of harmony, time, and melodic counterpoint – traits that would become his signature.

Thomas studied with Joe Gilman, Art Davis, and later at the Manhattan School of Music with Harvie S and Garry Dial.

His early grounding in classical technique, combined with a deep absorption of the jazz tradition, shaped his sound: warm, transparent, rhythmically subtle, and deeply supportive without ever being passive.

Thomas is widely admired in the jazz world for his listening-first approach. He often functions less as a “bass player” and more as an equal conversationalist – reacting, probing, and reshaping the harmonic and rhythmic environment in real time.

His touch is feather-light but authoritative; his lines are melodic rather than pattern-driven; and he is known for rarely repeating himself. He has become a first-call collaborator for some of the most forward-thinking artists in contemporary jazz, including Bill Frisell (one of his most important ongoing partnerships; their duo work is critically acclaimed), Paul Motian (Motian loved Morgan’s “anti-formula” approach), Joey Baron, Craig Taborn, Masabumi Kikuchi (another defining musical relationship), Steve Coleman & Tomasz Stańko.

Thomas appears on dozens of influential recordings across ECM, Intakt, Pirouet, and other major labels.

His bass playing is often described as transparent, elastic, and emotionally direct, with an almost uncanny ability to make any ensemble feel more spacious and conversational.

He continues to live in New York City, performing internationally and remaining one of the most quietly influential bass voices of his generation.

Thomas Strønen
is a Norwegian jazz drummer and composer, known for more than 60 albums, and cooperation with internationally acclaimed musicians worldwide. Strønen is recording for the great German label ECM and also for Rune Grammofon. As a composer, Strønen has contributed to the release of over forty recordings as well as several commissioned works for festivals.

Booklet for Windflower