Tag: ECM Records

CD Review, File Under?, Improv

Favorites 2022: Barre Phillips and ​​György Kurtág Jr. (Review)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barre Phillips and ​​György Kurtág Jr.

Face á Face 

ECM Records

 

Luminary avant-jazz bassist Barre Phillips and György Kurtág Jr., son of the well-known Hungarian composer and an electronic musician, join together on Face á Face. Kurtág uses a variety of synths, providing both pitched material and percussion to complement Phillips’ bass-playing. It might not be a pairing one would have readily thought of, even with Phillips’ long pedigree of collaborations, but Face á Face is a compelling recording. 

 

The album opener, “Beyond,” finds the two in a cat-and-mouse game, Kurtág beginning with oscillating seconds and then repeated pitches. Phillips responds initially with a melodic duet and then bends double stops. Chiming notes in the synths contrast Phillips’ low register melody on “The Under Zone.” “Two by Two” features sci-fi synths and combative percussion. Partway through, this gives way to Phillips, who plays repeated oscillations and harmonics in a hat tip to Kurtág’s textures. Low register double stops and minor seconds create a cavernous close. On “Across the Aisle,” both musicians play with material that combines non-pitched and pitched sounds, Phillips attacking various portions of his bass while Kurtág provides plinking gestures to offset bass harmonics. The piece begins and ends furiously with a more reserved development in between.

 

Every piece has a different sonic pedigree. Glissando bass lines and modular synth punctuations create intriguing blurring on the miniature “Algobench.” Double stopped bass notes and then repeated single tones are haloed by high register synth on “Chosen Spindle.” The synth part becomes more melodic and Phillips responds by taking on a grounding role with repeated octaves. Rather than concluding, the music seems to disappear. Arco playing and vibrating electronics, complete with cricket noises, are juxtaposed in the aptly named “Extended Circumstances.” “Bunch” has the players change roles, with Phillips making percussive sounds and Kurtág string-like glissandos. Phillips returns to harmonics, which are countered by a long, slow synthetic slide. On “Sharpen Your Eyes,” Phillips uses his bass as a drum and Kurtág engages in whistling noises. “Stand Alone” is a percussion duel with some bleeping to boot. The denouement is like a clock unwinding. 

 

Phillips moves closer to jazz with a swinging line on “Ruptured Air.” Not taking the bait, Kurtág supplies angular, sustained single notes as an avant rejoinder. This blending of styles provides one of the more fascinating colloquies on Face á Face. The recording closes with “Forest Shouts,” a miniature in which Phillips plays double stops and repeated dissonant intervals. Kurtág responds with a droid-like flute tune to bring the proceedings to an enigmatic close. Ingenious music-making: Face á Face is one of our favorites of 2022.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Julia Hülsmann Quartet on ECM (CD Review)

Julia Hülsmann Quartet

The Next Door

Julia Hülsmann, piano; Uli Kemperdorff, tenor saxophone; Marc Muellbauer, double bass; Heinrich Köbberling, drums 

ECM Records

 

Since their 2019 debut recording, Not Far From Here, the Julia Hülsmann Quartet has spent a lot of time touring and gigging, refining their sound and improvisational aesthetic. The group’s latest recording, The Next Door, is primarily comprised of originals by quartet members, alongside a scintillating rock cover. The addition of tenor saxophonist Uli Kemperdorff to Hülsmann’s long standing trio with bassist Marc Muellbauer and drummer Heinrich Köbberling has been a winning choice. Kemperdorff’s florid runs contain a sunniness that buoys the musical atmosphere. Muellbauer often finds voicing for bass lines that eschew roots in favor of higher overtones, allowing his playing to blend with the chordal choices made by Hülsmann. Köbberling’s gifts are versatile. He knows when to press the players forward and instead to focus on fills and syncopation. 

 

The album opens with “Empty Hands,” in which polymetric chordal planing in the piano is abetted first by a bass solo and then doubled melody with Kemperdorff. Hülsmann then plays a solo with undulating twists and turns and a change of mode midway. Kemperdorff’s solo turn is also filled with arpeggiation at rapid speed. Köbberling begins to assert himself in the last few choruses of saxophone soloing, which is followed once again by a doubling of the head, a bit more ornamented and ended without a button (a welcome way and underutilized way to stop). 

 

“Made of Wood” is a standout track. Beginning with a saxophone solo, the head appears afterwards, once again doubled by saxophone and piano, a texture that the group takes as formative. Muellbauer and Köbberling work in an offsetted way against the melody instruments, finding holes for fills and bass riffs between phrase barriers. Hülsmann plays a lithe single-line solo which gradually is embellished with chromatic harmonies. Kemperdorff’s second solo turn is abbreviated in favor of a duet with Hülsmann. A brief denouement closes the tune.

 

“Wasp at the Window” features a multi-stop bass solo with percussive slaps to open. Kemperdorff then plays moto perpetuo scales that give us the dangerous little insect in motion. Hülsmann provides the wasp with a bit more of a swinging, jaunty swagger and the intricacies of the group’s rhythmic palette suggest the way the guest might nervously be perceived. It is a charming use of programmatic playing. “Jetz Nocht Nicht” is a set of imitative duets between saxophone and piano that could are an appealing but knotty musical puzzle. There is a reprise later in which the entire quartet gets to add their own strands to the counterpoint. 

 

Hülsmann contributes five compositions to The Next Door, and shares writing duties with other members of the quartet. “Lightcap” is by Köbberling, and is a reference to the bassist Chris Lightcap, with whom the drummer played in the nineties. Kemperdorff plays a rangy and fiery solo over wide spaced changes. Köbberling shifts the underlying pulsation several times, asserting himself in his own piece. The last section is a funky outro that, as before, avoids punctuation at its close. “Post Post Post,” the drummer’s other composition, has an ambling melody that appears in various incarnations throughout the group’s haunting improvisations.

 

Kemperdorff’s “Open Up” is a hard swinging tune with bent notes and a sturdy harmonic background that gives Hülsmann plenty of room for substitutions. The rhythm section revels in playing in this trad-mod context. Both saxophone and piano solos are expressive and virtuosic in technical demands. Octave lines shared between piano, saxophone, and bass open “Polychrome,” a Muellbauer composition, which are followed by a pensive piano interlude that takes as much from Webern as from post-bop. Kemperdorff plays with extended scales that encompass the fully chromatic in several different patternings. Muellbauer provides grounding to this fiendishly difficult progression. 

 

Hülsmann frequently uses water imagery, and “Fluid” takes the idea of a crescendoing arc, topped by waves of melody, as the formal design for this affecting ballad. When the pianist takes her solo, we move from the motile water music to equally lithe but swinging music for the quartet. Scalar passages bring back the sense of water’s flow, followed by cascading runs by Kemperdorff that also draw fluid to mind.” A final section of flowing arpeggios and muscular drums brings the piece to a close. Muellbauer makes a clever amalgam in the bossa nova “Valdemossa,” combining the traditional dance’s gestures with the chord progression from Chopin’s enigmatic Prelude in E-minor. The combination works beautifully, with Hülsmann leading in to her neoclassical side while Kemperdorff underscores tango rhythms in his solo turn. 

 

A pop cover is often found on Hülsmann’s recordings. Here it is Prince’s “Sometimes it Snows in April.” It first appeared on Under the Red Cherry Tree, and the song’s long intro and quirky harmonic shifts are reflected in the quartet’s faithful and affecting recording. The Next Door shows a group that has developed its sound exploring different musical pathways with authority. Recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Mark Turner – Return from the Stars (CD Review)

Mark Turner

Return from the Stars

Mark Turner, saxophone; Jason Palmer, trumpet; Joe Martin, double-bass, Jonathan Pinson, drums

ECM Records

 

In recent years, saxophonist Mark Turner has appeared as a collaborator on a number of ECM recordings, including CDs with Billy Hart and Ethan Iverson. His latest, Return from the Stars, is the first quartet outing he has recorded for the label as a leader since 2014’s Lathe of Heaven. The players who join Turner are trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Jonathan Pinson. All of the tunes are originals by Turner, and he demonstrates versatility and depth as a writer. Just as Lathe of Heaven is the name of an Ursula K. LeGuin novel, Return from the Stars references a totemic sci-fi book by Stanislav Lem. There are no electronics or sci-fi effects that suggest spaciness, but the solos of the winds and freely flowing rhythm section suggest music that aloft ascends. 

 

The title composition has a mysterious cast, beginning with the tune outlined by trumpet and saxophone with heterophonic embellishments in both of the winds and a sotto voce rhythm section. The lines start to crisscross only to once again converge, with Martin interjecting a walking line that supplies another melody to the action. Pinson builds upon Martin’s gestures, swelling to dynamic presence. Turner is a generous collaborator, eager to showcase his colleagues alongside his own playing. Palmer is allowed considerable time to solo. His rangy and rhythmically varied one on “It’s not Alright” is a particular standout of virtuosity and taste in shaping numerous choruses. The tune also features Turner and Palmer playing fleet renditions of the tune in octaves completely together. On “Wasteland” they play a duet in rhythmic unison but in constantly shifting intervals. Martin and Pinson relate to them in an abstract fashion. Just when you think that they are off on a tangent, the group syncs together, with Martin providing harmonic underpinning and Pinson landing with him to articulate arrival points. 

 

Several of the tunes stretch, but “Unacceptable” is the longest form, with cat-and-mouse canons leading off into overlapping winds. A melodic cell is played in intervals and then developed as a principal motive in octaves. The winds submerge at their cadences points, affording space for breaks by the rhythm section followed by solo turns. Turner’s is chromatic, vibrant in tone, and filled with scalar passages that develop and recall the chorus. The game of canons returns, followed by a languid trumpet solo and then a warm wind duet. The close is a beautiful denouement, with the wind duo slowing down and fading to pianissimo and the rhythm section equally hushed. 

 

An intricate piece, “Unacceptable” suggests that Turner would do well to arrange some of his compositions for larger ensembles: perhaps ECM will oblige in a future recording project. In the meantime, Return from the Stars supplies the listener with plenty of fascinating music to savor. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Vermillion: Kit Downes on ECM (CD Review)

Kit Downes

Vermillion

Kit Downes, piano; Petter Eldh, double bass; James Maddren, drums

ECM Records

 

After listening to Obsidian, Kit Downes’s debut as a leader for ECM, one might justifiably think from his considerable prowess as an organist that it was his sole specialty. Not so, as is eminently demonstrated on Vermillion, a piano trio album in a modern jazz idiom for ECM. On a set of originals by Downes and bassist Petter Eldh, along with a rendition of  “Castles of Sand” by Jimi Hendrix, these two musicians along with drummer James Maddren demonstrate a simpatico collaboration, filled with rich harmonic progressions and a well-coordinated sense of swing. 

 

“Minus Monks” is an homage to Thelonious Monk, with slender voicings and an angular melody adorning a circuitous set of changes. Downes plays with a silvery, legato touch, frequently locking in on polychords with Eldh playing rock solid roots. Maddren is resourceful, using the entire kit yet never overwhelming the proceedings. “Sister, Sister” has an intro that could be translated from a Debussy Prelude, and the impressionist timbres continue once he is joined by Eldh and Maddren, the bassist playing fleet countermelodies and the drummer shading the tune with cymbals shimmering. “Seceda” is a loosely articulated ballad with post-bop filigrees followed by a pastoral progression inflected with blue notes. 

 

Eldh’s composition “Plus Puls” begins with a brief solo that sets a buoyant groove. The melody is frequently doubled in octaves by Eldh and Downes. The bassist’s tune “Sandiland” sets a walking line against syncopated piano chords and a wandering keyboard solo. “Math Amager ” is a showcase for Eldh’s fleet soloing. Maddren’s drums are featured on “Class Fails,” and the change in ensemble relationship provides welcome contrast. 

 

The most intriguing piece on Vermillion is Downes’s “Rolling Thunder,’ in which dissonant arpeggios put the trio outside the pocket. Eldh fills in some of the chromatic verticals which Maddren again punctuates with cymbals and gentle syncopated fills. “Bobbi’s Song” also focuses on intricate chord progressions thickly voiced with a tenor register countermelody from Eldh. “Castles Made of Sand” closes the album with Hendrix’s song given bitonal treatment with parallel voicings and harp-like arpeggiations. 

 

Whichever instrument Downes choses to play, piano or organ, he is a formidable and imaginative musician. One hopes he keeps the trio assembled here together: they collaborate with considerable skill and sensitivity.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, jazz

Best of 2021: ECM Recordings

Parker Quartet; Kim Kashkashian, viola

György Kurtág: Six moments musicaux; Officium breve

Antonin Dvořák: String Quintet op. 97

ECM Records

 

The Czech composer Antonin Dvořák (1844-1901) and Hungarian composer György Kurtág (1926-) are seldom mentioned in the same breath. One is more often likely to hear Dvořák being discussed in relation to his older colleague Johannes Brahms, and a similar pairing might be made between Kurtág and György Ligeti. However, they are paired by the Parker Quartet and violist Kim Kashkashian on a 2021 ECM CD. 

 

While their musical languages are worlds apart, connections between Dvořák and Kurtág, both as composers and teachers, might be found in their shared affinity for chamber music. The Parker Quartet and Kashkashian (who has recorded both Kurtág and Ligeti for ECM), provide a fitting approach to each piece on the recording.  In the Kurtág  selections, they make the most of the silences, extreme shifts of demeanor, and the aphoristic fragility of the often Webernian approach to line. This contrasts nicely with the warmly expressive interpretation they give to Dvořák’s String Quintet, op. 97. Written during his visit to America, it is one of Dvořák’s finest chamber pieces. Compelling playing and imaginative curation here.

 

Ayumi Tanaka Trio

Subaqueous Silence

Ayumi Tanaka, piano; Christian Meaas Svendsen, double bass; Per Oddvar Johansen, drums

ECM Records

 

Pianist Ayumi Tanaka makes her leader debut on ECM Records with Subaqueous Silence, a trio recording alongside bassist Christian Meaas Svendsen, who makes his label debut, and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen, who has recorded with a number of ECM’s other artists. Tanaka moved to Norway because she found the improvised music being made there compelling. She fits right with her colleagues in the trio, but also brings the sensibility of, as she describes it, “chamber music … Japanese classical music,” to create a distinctive sound and approach. Her use of space, with silences and pianissimo passages prominent in the texture, is counterbalanced by arpeggiations rife with dissonance and bass note stabs. Indeed, in places one wonders if Kurtág (see above), might be a touchstone. Elsewhere, her harmonies oscillate between jazz and extended chords that seem borrowed from early in the twentieth century; Tanaka certainly has Debussy and Schoenberg under her hands. Svendson is a study in opposites as well, grounding the harmony with slow-moving bass notes, and playing raucous high harmonics in a few places. His arco playing is quite attractive. Johansen is a perfect percussionist for this setting, subtle, responsive, and more textural than propulsive. One hopes this is the beginning of a long term collaboration for these three talented improvisers. 

 

Eberhard Weber

Once Upon a Time

ECM Records

 

On Once Upon a Time, Bassist Eberhard Weber is captured in a live performance from 1994 at Avignon’s Théâtre des Halles, part of a festival celebrating bassists organized by Barre Phillips. Weber explores a number of his then recently recorded works, including ensemble pieces such as his Trio for Bassoon and Bass, deconstructing and reanimating them in this solo setting. One of the ways that he accomplishes this is by using delay pedals to create five-second loops, over which he adds additional voices. Weber often opts for a clean sound, but allows for some timbral modifications around the edges, again via pedals. These are particularly surprising in the one standard on the CD, “My Favorite Things,” which is given the overdub treatment; particularly rousing riffs and squalling notes from the highest register appear over the chordal vamp. Another standout is the extended workout Weber gives to his piece “Pendulum,” with an attractive melody and variation after variation explored throughout the compass of the instrument. “Delirium” explores chords and harmonics in equal measure, while “Ready out There” is a feast of virtuosity. 

Marc Johnson

Overpass

ECM Records

 

For an entirely different kind of solo bass recording, Marc Johnson plays originals and others’ compositions significant to his work from throughout his career on double bass. Thus, “Love Theme from Spartacus” recalls his work in 1970 with Bill Evans’ last trio, as does a welcome return to his showcase “Nardis.” Both of these have grown in conception and are thoughtfully reinvestigated. The oft recorded “Freedom Jazz Dance,” by Eddie Harris, elicits a polyphonic performance with a low-register ostinato and florid soloing in the cello register. Among Johnson’s own compositions, particularly impressive is “Strike Each Tuneful String,” which references the African instrument with ox tendon strings called the Inanga. It features a melody in the low register complemented by chordal harmonics. The exoticism of “Samurai Fly,” a reworking of Johnson’s eighties tune “Samurai Hee-Haw,” features Asian exoticism in a more overt tip of the hat to nonwestern musical material. It also includes a small amount of overdubbing, more subtle than Weber’s looping but just as effective. “Yin and Yang” instead plays with using four-string strumming to create a thickened texture, while the closer “Whorled Whirled World,” appropriate to the title, features circular patterning that resembles double time walking with a splash of minimalism tossed in for good measure. A varied and compelling outing that will occupy a well-deserved spot among ECM’s collection of solo bass recordings. 

 

Andrew Cyrille Quartet

The News 

ECM Records

David Virelles, piano; Bill Frisell, guitar; Ben Street, bass; Andrew Cyrille, drums and percussion

 

Andrew Cyrille is now an octogenarian, an age at which many musicians have already retired or are slowing down. Cyrille retains a superlative technique and while his latest quartet outing for ECM, The News, emphasizes interplay and texture over power, it is clear that there is much of that yet remaining in the drummer’s arsenal as well. 

 

Cyrille is credited with three of the compositions on The News. The title track was originally a solo percussion piece. Recast for the quartet, it is the most experimental sounding piece on the album. David Virelles plays synth as well as his usual instrument, the piano, Ben Street plays the bass both arco and pizzicato, guitarist Bill Frisell daubs dissonance and darting linear flurries here and there, and Cyrille employs a number of drums and percussion instruments in a spell binding, unorthodox fashion. The drummer places newspaper over the snare and toms and plays with brushes: an intriguing timbral choice. “The Dance of the Nuances,” co-authored by Cyrille with the group’s pianist David Virelles, features bowed bass and single line solos punctuated by Cyrille’s syncopated drumming.

 

Three pieces are credited to Frisell. “Go Happy Lucky” is a mid tempo blues bounce that is jubilant in tone. Frisell plays the head and the first solo section in jaunty fashion, followed by succulent arpeggiations  from Virelles. Cyrille’s drumming is propulsive and responsive to the melodic gestures of the soloists. Street plays walking lines that lead to the return of the head, this time with the whole group digging in and matching Frisell. “The Mountain” begins with a simple melody and chord progression played by Frisell. Gradually, it becomes more chromatic and embellished as Virelles and Street push the guitarist’s material outside. Cyrille adds a counter rhythm that also complicates the piece’s surface. “Baby” is one of Frisell’s pastoral Americana style pieces. His honeyed melody is supplied counterpoint by Street, Fender Rhodes comping from Virelles, and subdued drumming by Cyrille. Virelles contributes the composition “Incienso,” which has an ambling melody and an intricate chord structure filled with Brazilian allusions and polytonal reference points. 

 

The one piece used by a musician outside the group is “Leaving East of Java” by Steve Colson. This is a felicitous inclusion. A performer, composer, and educator, it is unfortunate that Colson’s work isn’t better known today. “Leaving East of Java” includes guitar and piano in octaves and intricate chords rolled by Virelles. Synthetic scales evoke the exoticism, if not the specific content, of Javanese gamelan. Partway through, Street takes a suave solo succeeded by florid playing from Frisell and a repeated riff from Virelles. The pianist then plummets into the bass register, placing quick scalar passages underneath Street’s legato playing. The octaves return briefly to punctuate the piece’s close. 

 

The final composition, “With You in Mind” by Cyrille, features the drummer intoning a spoken word introduction of an original poem. The main section of the piece starts as a duo, with Virelles and Street creating a gently lilting ambience with traditional harmonies and rhythmic gestures that reflect the poetry (it would be great to see this poem set with the tune for singers). A piquant piano chord invites Frisell and Virelles to join the proceedings, with the guitarist creating an arrangement of the tune with chordal embellishments and Cyrille imparting the time with graceful poise. It ends in a whorl of chordal extensions and soft cymbal sizzle. 

 

Jazz players and audiences alike are often seeking “new standards” to canonize. There are several tunes here that qualify. The News is one of our Best of 2021 recordings. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

 

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, File Under?, Improv, jazz

Best of 2021 – Craig Taborn on ECM (CD Review)

Sequenza 21 Best of 2021

 

Craig Taborn

Shadowplay

ECM Records

 

I first became aware of pianist Craig Taborn in the early aughts, writing about him for (dearly departed) Copper Press and Signal to Noise and contributing reviews of his various outings as leader and sideperson since. In his recent playing, Taborn has displayed increasing expansiveness and interest in diversely complex formal designs. Shadowplay is a 2020 live recording of the pianist at Konzerthaus, Wien. The full hour and a quarter of it is improvised material, some pieces providing a fresh perspective on Taborns creativity.

 

The opener, Bird Templars, is representative of the frequent juxtapositions of musical techniques employed on the recording. It starts pianissimo with a repeated mid-register tremolo and a gradually unfolding melody in the lower register, then doubled in rumbling octaves. The oscillation builds into chordal tremolos with the countermelody now placed in the middle register. A repeated figure in the bass starts to define the harmony, and it builds into octave arpeggios over the tremolos, now more insistent, and then a series of close-spaced intervals, a collection that will reappear in various guises. The roles shift, with chords in the left hand and a continually repeated unison in the right. These are the building blocks for the material that ensues, with a development in which sharing of material between hands is expanded and reconsidered. The middle section finally concludes with a keyboard spanning scale with the sustain pedal held down. This is followed by a section that puts the chords in the left hand and a mournful melody in the right in a grand crescendo of activity, which dissolves into the close-spaced interval group played inverted in the left hand while thirds in the right climb upward and revert back to tremolos to close. To work out such a framework on the fly takes technical skill, contrapuntal chops, and tremendous concentration.

 

Beginning with dissonant fragments of material, Shadowplay demonstrates concern with stylistic plurality. It moves through swing time sections, ostinato arpeggiations, thick repeated chords, a passage of minimalism, and an extended coda of repeated mottos in both left and right hand that link together in polyrhythmic post-bop fashion. At the very end, the motto pops up an octave to explore the soprano register and then, abruptly, stops.

 

The listener is treated to several more long form improvisations with compositional deployment of formal design, including the pair of Discordia Concors, a Schoenbergian essay with glissandos alongside melodic angularity and Concordia Discors that more resembles the color chords of Messiaen accompanying a mercurial ballad melody, which then goes into a double time ramble. There is a build to a protracted clarion repeated unison, then slowing to a glacial version of the ballad tune. Conspiracy of Things begins with a blustery cascade of dissonances that moves into an ebullient set of bebop variations. It finishes with an accelerando of chromatic passagework over a repeated bass groove.

 

A Code with Spells brings together a bluesy ballads melodic embellishments, repeated bass riff, and imaginative chordal exploration. Here as elsewhere, many different dynamic shadings and variations of phrasing create an abundant variety of impressions. The repetition eventually spreads to the entire texture, in successive ferocious builds and then a decrescendoing denouement daring the listener to guess when it will cease. Near the end, a triplet figure inserts itself and proliferates to take over the rhythm, accelerating to an abrupt close.

 

Now in Hope finishes the concert with a gospel/bop hybrid that is the closest material to traditional jazz on Shadowplay. At its conclusion, enthusiastic applause is left untrimmed – feel free to join in.

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Best of 2021: Andrew Cyrille Quartet (CD Review)

Best of 2021

Andrew Cyrille Quartet

The News 

ECM Records

David Virelles, piano; Bill Frisell, guitar; Ben Street, bass; Andrew Cyrille, drums and percussion

 

Andrew Cyrille is now an octogenarian, an age at which many musicians have already retired or are slowing down. Cyrille retains a superlative technique and while his latest quartet outing for ECM, The News, emphasizes interplay and texture over power, it is clear that there is much of that yet remaining in the drummer’s arsenal as well. 

 

Cyrille is credited with three of the compositions on The News. The title track was originally a solo percussion piece. Recast for the quartet, it is the most experimental sounding piece on the album. David Virelles plays synth as well as his usual instrument, the piano, Ben Street plays the bass both arco and pizzicato, guitarist Bill Frisell daubs dissonance and darting linear flurries here and there, and Cyrille employs a number of drums and percussion instruments in a spell binding, unorthodox fashion. The drummer places newspaper over the snare and toms and plays with brushes: an intriguing timbral choice. “The Dance of the Nuances,” co-authored by Cyrille with the group’s pianist David Virelles, features bowed bass and single line solos punctuated by Cyrille’s syncopated drumming.

 

Three pieces are credited to Frisell. “Go Happy Lucky” is a mid tempo blues bounce that is jubilant in tone. Frisell plays the head and the first solo section in jaunty fashion, followed by succulent arpeggiations  from Virelles. Cyrille’s drumming is propulsive and responsive to the melodic gestures of the soloists. Street plays walking lines that lead to the return of the head, this time with the whole group digging in and matching Frisell. “The Mountain” begins with a simple melody and chord progression played by Frisell. Gradually, it becomes more chromatic and embellished as Virelles and Street push the guitarist’s material outside. Cyrille adds a counter rhythm that also complicates the piece’s surface. “Baby” is one of Frisell’s pastoral Americana style pieces. His honeyed melody is supplied counterpoint by Street, Fender Rhodes comping from Virelles, and subdued drumming by Cyrille. Virelles contributes the composition “Incienso,” which has an ambling melody and an intricate chord structure filled with Brazilian allusions and polytonal reference points. 

 

The one piece used by a musician outside the group is “Leaving East of Java” by Steve Colson. This is a felicitous inclusion. A performer, composer, and educator, it is unfortunate that Colson’s work isn’t better known today. “Leaving East of Java” includes guitar and piano in octaves and intricate chords rolled by Virelles. Synthetic scales evoke the exoticism, if not the specific content, of Javanese gamelan. Partway through, Street takes a suave solo succeeded by florid playing from Frisell and a repeated riff from Virelles. The pianist then plummets into the bass register, placing quick scalar passages underneath Street’s legato playing. The octaves return briefly to punctuate the piece’s close. 

 

The final composition, “With You in Mind” by Cyrille, features the drummer intoning a spoken word introduction of an original poem. The main section of the piece starts as a duo, with Virelles and Street creating a gently lilting ambience with traditional harmonies and rhythmic gestures that reflect the poetry (it would be great to see this poem set with the tune for singers). A piquant piano chord invites Frisell and Virelles to join the proceedings, with the guitarist creating an arrangement of the tune with chordal embellishments and Cyrille imparting the time with graceful poise. It ends in a whorl of chordal extensions and soft cymbal sizzle. 

 

Jazz players and audiences alike are often seeking “new standards” to canonize. There are several tunes here that qualify. The News is one of our Best of 2021 recordings. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Guitar

Ferenc Snétberger and Keller Quartett on ECM (CD Review)

Hallgató

Ferenc Snétberger, guitar; Keller Quartett: András Keller, Zsófia Környei, violins; Gábor Homoki, viola; László Fenyő, violoncello; Gyula Lázár, double bass

ECM Records

 

Recorded live in the Grand Hall of Budapest’s Liszt Academy, Hallgató chronicles an ongoing collaboration between guitarist Ferenc Snétberger and the Keller Quartett. The concert’s program is one of memory and mourning, referencing the Holocaust and repression in Russia and Eastern Europe under Stalin. For the guitarist, whose mother was Roma and father Sinti, a sense of collective mourning, alongside a spirit of resistance, are closely intertwined aspects of his biography and musical resources. The Keller Quartett are fellow Hungarians and prove to be estimable collaborators.

Snétberger’s guitar concerto, In Memory of My People, was composed in 1994 to commemorate the half-century since the Holocaust. It is presented on Hallgató in an arrangement for guitar and string quintet. The first movement begins with an achingly slow cadenza. Joined by the strings, this is followed by a supple lyrical theme. After a reprise of the cadenza, a buoyant folk dance makes a brief appearance before the movement waxes rhapsodic once again. The second movement also traverses slow musical terrain, but here the material is imbued with brief allusions to Brazilian guitar and jazz. The concluding movement’s fleet-footed Roma dance music provides a delightful contrast and excellent finale for the piece.

The Keller Quartett performs Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet, one of his most harrowing works. A fugue using the DSCH motive (a note cipher for the composer’s name), the famous “knock on the door,” a warning that Stalin’s agents might take the composer at any time, and a number of self-quotations of his most defiant music make this an unrepentant statement by a composer under threat of death. The Keller Quartett’s rendition embodies searing pathos and is riveting throughout.

Two arrangements of John Dowland songs follow, “I Saw My Lady Weep” and “Flow My Tears,” combining the “consorts” of Renaissance music by having Snétberger play an embellished version of the lute part while the strings bear the melody and intermittent accompaniment. Dowland’s motto was “Semper Dowland, semper dolens” (Always Dowland, always doleful), and these two songs add another layer to the pervasive grief of Hallgató. The quartet takes up another piece famous for its expression of lament, the Molto Adagio movement from Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, Op. 11. Through a constantly interweaving minor-key melody, it creates a kind of funereal keening. After a number of bathetic accounts of the piece by other interpreters, the Keller Quartett’s recording is remarkable in its restrained dignity.

 

A glimmer of hope amidst the tragic resides in Snétberger’s solo piece “Your Smile.” The disc concludes with “Rhapsody 1,” arranged for guitar and strings. It was originally written as music for a film about the Roma people and the Holocaust. Wistful guitar solos alternate with arcing passages for the whole ensemble, evincing a sense of yearning, mourning, and resignation. Hallgató is a bit hard to translate, and it has different meanings in Hungarian and Roma, but it connotes a sense of listening. This release certainly invites listening, preferably many times, to savor its exhortation to remember.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

Jan Garbarek and Hilliard Ensemble (CD Review)

Remember Me, My Dear (ECM, 2019).

Remember Me, My Dear

Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble

ECM New Series 2625

The Hilliard Ensemble disbanded five years ago. Happily, they made a few recordings for ECM that have allowed listeners to continue to enjoy new music from them. Remember Me, My Dear was recorded on their last tour in 2014 at the Collegiate Church in Bellinzona, Switzerland. It celebrates a quarter century of collaboration, beginning with the Officium album, released in 1994 to wide acclaim.

As with their previous collaborations, Remember Me, My Dear features both early music by composers such as Hildegard von Bingen, Pérotin, and the ever ubiquitous Anonymous, as well as twentieth/twenty-first century pieces by Arvo Pärt, Komitas, and Russian liturgical composer Nikolay Kedrov. Often the blending of resources is impressive. Garbarek creates imitative lines that further elaborate Kedrov’s “Litany” and revels in the modal scales found in “Procedentem Sponsum.” The saxophonist solos over the Hilliard Ensemble singing suavely arranged jazz chords on his original “Allting Finns.”

Elsewhere, there is a juxtaposition of disparate elements. On an Agnus Dei by the Renaissance composer Antoine Brumel, the counterpoint from the voices serves as a backdrop for cascading runs by Garbarek. In the title track, which originally appeared on the studio album Mnemosyne, a homophonic chanson is elaborated with saxophone filigrees between phrases.

Garbarek’s original “We are the Stars” is a rapturous piece, with soprano saxophone contributing altissimo register climaxes that are shadowed by countertenor David James in his own upper register. Guilliame Le Rouge’s fifteenth century chanson Se je fayz deuil ideally presents the autumnal warmth of the quartet’s sound in the Collegiate Church’s generous acoustic. Pérotin’s Alleluia Navitas provides a joyous colloquy between Garbarek and the singers. Who knew that medieval organum could so successfully afford rollicking, bluesy rejoinders?

Remember, My Dear amply demonstrates that, until the end of their work together, the Hilliard Ensemble remained in fine voice.  It is always difficult to say goodbye to a group that has played such a pivotal role in one’s study and enjoyment of music. The post-disbandment releases shared on ECM have been a generous surplus. The Hilliard Ensemble, and their collaboration with Garbarek, will be dearly remembered for a long time to come.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Concerts, File Under?, jazz

10/16: Iverson and Harrell at Jazz Standard

Photo: Monica Frisell/ECM Records

In recent years, pianist Ethan Iverson has been collaborating with a number of artists, particularly elder statesmen of the jazz tradition. In 2017, he appeared at the Village Vanguard with trumpeter Tom Harrell. The performances were document on Common Practice, Iverson’s most recent ECM recording. In addition to Harrell, the CD’s personnel includes bassist Ben Street and drummer Eric McPherson, longtime associates of the pianist.

The common practice to which the title refers are jazz standards, mostly from the Great American Songbook but also bebop originals. The group investigates a range of styles, from ardent balladry on “The Man I Love” to smoky lyricism on “I Can’t Get Started” to puckish wit on “Sentimental Journey.” Harrell and Iverson display imaginative recasting of harmonic changes throughout, but especially on vigorous versions of “All the Things You Are” and “Wee.” Iverson contributes two tunes, “Philadelphia Creamer” and “Jed from Teaneck,” both blues with twists and turns of the form.

Photo: Monica Frisell/ECM Records

On Wednesday, October 16th, the quartet reunites for two sets at Jazz Standard (details below). Their take on jazz’s common practice is not to be missed.

Photo: Monica Frisell/ECM Records.

Event Details

Ethan Iverson Quartet featuring Tom Harrell

Wednesday, October 16 - shows at 7:30 and 9:30 PM
Jazz Standard 
116 E. 27th Street, NYC
Tickets here
Ethan Iverson – piano
Tom Harrell – trumpet, flugelhorn
Ben Street – bass
Eric McPherson – drums
by Christian Carey