{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox album | name = The Study of Touch | type = Album | artist = Django Bates Belovèd | cover = The Study of Touch.jpg|border=yes | alt = | released = 3 November 2017 | recorded = June 2016 | venue = | studio = Rainbow Studio<br>Oslo, Norway | genre = Jazz | length = 56:17 | label = ECM<br /><small>ECM 2534</small> | producer = Manfred Eicher | chronology = Django Bates | prev_title = Saluting Sgt. Pepper | prev_year = 2017 | next_title = | next_year = }}

'''''The Study of Touch''''' is an album by the Django Bates' Belovèd recorded in Norway in June 2016 and released on ECM November the following year. The trio features rhythm section Petter Eldh and Peter Bruun.<ref name="ECM discography">{{cite web | url=https://www.ecmrecords.com/catalogue/1484743362 | title=ECM Catalogue | accessdate=19 December 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.djangobates.co.uk/produktseite/the-study-of-touch | title=Django Bates discography | accessdate=19 December 2017}}</ref>

==Reception== {{Album ratings | rev1 = Allmusic | rev1Score = {{rating|4|5}}<ref name="Allmusic"/> | rev2 = The Guardian | rev2Score = {{rating|4|5}}<ref name="TheGuardian"/> | rev3 = All About Jazz | rev3Score = {{rating|5|5}}<ref name=AAJ1/> | rev4 = All About Jazz | rev4Score = {{rating|4|5}}<ref name=AAJ2/> | rev5 = Financial Times | rev5Score = {{rating|4|5}}<ref name=FT/> }} On Allmusic, Thom Jurek observed "Ultimately, Bates' Beloved is a piano trio with attitude. For them, composition and improvisation are interlocutors in a diverse and individual musical language that's meant to "slip" through the cracks whenever purpose—or desire—dictate in order to make something new, or at least new again. On ''The Study of Touch'', that shared attitude carves out a new potential space for the jazz piano trio in the 21st century."<ref name="Allmusic">{{AllMusic|first=Thom |last=Jurek |class=album |id=mw0003109240 |title= Django Bates: ''The Study of Touch'' – Review |accessdate=19 December 2017}}</ref>

Writing for The Guardian reviewer John Fordham called it "A session by a master improvising composer, and in ideal company."<ref name="TheGuardian">{{cite news | last=Fordham | first=John | url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/nov/16/django-bates-beloved-study-touch-review-ecm | newspaper=The Guardian | title=Django Bates Belovèd: The Study of Touch review – tender, impulsive, graceful | date=17 November 2017 | accessdate=27 May 2025}}</ref>

On All About Jazz, Mike Jurkovic noted "With boundless humor and flexible grace, pianist Django Bates offers us ''The Study of Touch'' the perfect piano trio music for the significant other who absolutely hates piano trio music" while Karl Ackermann said "it seems that in teaming with Eldh and Bruun, more than ten years back, Bates was simultaneously laying the groundwork for what has become his own version of a standards trio. In covering much of the trio's previous work, Bates allows himself the luxury of poetic license by reinterpreting pieces through an always expanding lens."<ref name="AAJ1">Jurkovic, M. [https://www.allaboutjazz.com/beloved-django-bates-ecm-records-review-by-mike-jurkovic.php All About Jazz Review 1], 10 November 2017</ref><ref name="AAJ2">Ackermann, K. [https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-study-of-touch-django-bates-ecm-records-review-by-karl-ackermann.php All About Jazz Review 2], 20 November 2017</ref>

Financial Times' writer Mike Hobart said "The Belovèd piano trio has given Django Bates’ vivid musical imagination an added focus and internal discipline that the pyrotechnics of his orchestral projects sometimes lack. The dramatic juxtapositions and intriguing twists remain, but now they unfold organically from within, driven by a tight-knit interplay that sustains mood and gives the music more room to breathe.... This release highlights Bates’ intimate grasp of grand piano textures and the intuitive bond between piano, bass and drums and has a more introspective air."<ref name="FT">Hobart, M. [https://www.ft.com/content/649845dc-cd93-11e7-9dbb-291a884dd8c6 Financial Times Review], 23 November 2017</ref>

==Track listing== All compositions by Django Bates except where noted # "Sadness All the Way Down" – 2:16 # "Giorgiantics" – 6:06 # "Little Petherick" – 6:24 # "Senza Bitterness" – 3:29 # "We Are Not Lost, We Are Simply Finding Our Way" – 6:10 # "This World" (Iain Ballamy) – 5:30 # "The Study of Touch" – 9:45 # "Passport" (Charlie Parker) – 2:48 # "Slippage Street" – 7:40 # "Peonies as Promised" – 4:51 # "Happiness All the Way Up" – 1:18

==Personnel==

=== Django Bates' Belovèd === * Django Bates – piano * Petter Eldh – bass * Peter Bruun – drums

==References== {{reflist}} {{Django Bates}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Study of Touch, The}} Category:ECM Records albums Category:Django Bates albums Category:2017 albums Category:Albums produced by Manfred Eicher