In films, time and place are used to ground a story in a particular atmosphere, to give it emotional background – but they reveal little about the story itself, about its meaning or eventual resolution. The compositions of the Vienna-based ensemble Tree serve a similar purpose: they provide a setting, but it is during the process of improvisation and interaction that they truly unfold into living, breathing stories. Georg Vogel, Andreas Waelti and Michael Prowaznik play jazz in all its various forms, devoting themselves to the interplay of conceptual and intuitive ideas, elaborating or contrasting them in the course of their improvisation. The trio’s approach is refreshingly undogmatic: anachronisms are cleverly updated, liberated, and merged with the modern to form new hybrids. «Tree» works as a unit in the best sense of the word, showing conclusively that even in postmodern times, music can retain a special vitality.