Year: 2010

Jack DeJohnette: Pictures (ECM 1079)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1079

Jack DeJohnette
Pictures

Jack DeJohnette drums, piano, organ
John Abercrombie electric and acoustic guitars
Recorded February, 1976 at Talent Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Hot on the heels of his stellar Directions debut, drummer Jack DeJohnette settled down in the studio for this cool duo album with guitarist John Abercrombie. Less a side project than a chance to open the mind to more introverted images, Pictures is the spark behind the fire.

The steady beats of “Picture 1” grow in scope with every new added detour. What at first seems a drumming exercise quickly turns haunting as an organ rises up from the earthen tide. After the ode to toms and cymbals that is “Picture 2,” the following three Pictures feature Abercrombie’s improvisatory accents, which range from meandering to cathartic. But the real pièce de résistance is “Picture 6.” As its temperate piano introduction works its way into a swell of gongs, we begin to see the melody behind the fire. It is a Keith Jarrett moment if there ever was one, the Ruta and Daitya that could have been.

Like any good picture, DeJohnette’s curious little project has everything it needs in frame. Nothing extraneous; stripped-down music-making for its own sake, offered up to the listener with humility and respect. This is not an album meant to titillate or to excite or to make any sweeping statements on the nature of its own becoming. It professes to be nothing beyond the space implied, never the sum but the equation laid bare. Get this album for its stunning closer, and open yourself to its other intimacies. Pictures gives us unique insight into the craft of a musician more widely known for his equally arousing timing and delivery.

<< Enrico Rava: The Plot (ECM 1078)
>> John Abercrombie/Ralph Towner: Sargasso Sea (ECM 1080)

Bach: Inventionen und Sinfonien/Französische Suite V – Fellner (ECM New Series 2043)

| Tyran Grillo

 

Johann Sebastian Bach
Inventionen und Sinfonien/Französische Suite V

Till Fellner piano
Recorded July 2007, Mozartsaal, Wiener Konzerthaus
Engineer: Markus Heiland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

What is a “Bach interpreter”? Is it someone who draws from creative reserves to put as unique a spin as possible on much-performed repertoire? Must s/he be selfless and allow the music to “speak for itself”? After a four-year wait, Austrian pianist Till Fellner follows up his humble ECM debut recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier with the often overshadowed Two and Three Part Inventions, through which he answers these questions with one of his own: However Bach is painted, what is the image being maintained?

From note one, this is a clearer, more present album than Fellner’s somewhat murkier (and no less affecting) WTC. He holds up every piece to his jeweler’s eye, that we might better see its overall prismatic nature. His rhythms are protean and proper, giving the faster movements just enough pep to gain savory traction while lacing the slower ones with a luxuriant sweetness. As with his last studio effort, Fellner shows a profound ability to draw out the denser implications of the latter (particularly Inventions No. 6 and No. 7; Sinfonias No. 2, No. 6, and No. 7). The more rapid flights are so clearly separated in his fingers that one never gets lost in their overload of grace. From the gravid yet fluid treads of Inventions No. 4 and No. 8 to the trill-infused menagerie of No. 10 and the invigorating No. 13, each instructive development unfolds a new page in this evolving book. Two Sinfonias—No. 11 and No. 15—grow especially more complex with each new listen. Their aquatic transparency and sweeping runs bow like a servant at court to a faceless monarch of sound. Fellner caps the program with a spacious rendition of Bach’s French Suite No. 5. Showing again his supreme pacing in the opening Allemande, he continues through a must-stop-whatever-you’re-doingly gorgeous Sarabande on his way to a winged Gigue.

Intended as the Inventions were as mere didactic exercises, their lines are unmitigated and succinct. Yet for all their brevity, a macrocosm of chords swings between its molecular monkey bars. Fellner plays utterly pianistically, and in doing so makes no qualms about the newness his style can bring. The variable volume of the instrument is taken full advantage of by Fellner, who allows choice notes to ring out and descend. In doing so, he manages to pull off an astounding feat: reinvigorating Bach with utter complacency. Says Fellner of these pieces: “Literally every note counts.” But when he plays, it all comes down to one.

Ralph Towner’s Solstice: Sound And Shadows (ECM 1095)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1095

Ralph Towner’s Solstice
Sound and Shadows

Ralph Towner 12-string and classical guitars, piano, French horn
Jan Garbarek soprano and tenor saxophones, flute
Eberhard Weber bass, cello
Jon Christensen drums
Recorded February 1977 at Talent Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

If Ralph Towner’s classic Solstice was an overland journey, then Sound And Shadows is a subterranean dream. Featuring the same lineup as its predecessor—Jan Garbarek on saxophones, Eberhard Weber on bass and cello, Jon Christensen on drums, and Towner himself behind an arsenal of instruments—the results are perhaps not as focused. Then again, they don’t need to be.

Amid the spacious 12-string considerations of “Distant Hills,” we cannot help but feel a rich and complex topography curling into slumber above our heads. Weber’s electronic touches here deepen what is already clothed in darkness. The tighter “Balance Beam” is, like its titular object, steady and reassuring yet something to which one must pay respect if one is to navigate it successfully. Garbarek’s sopranic accents teeter across it, bringing with them the idea of light where there can be none. “Along The Way” is a collection of invisible snapshots animated by the life force of the musical gesture. Towner reprises his deft pianism in “Arion.” Caressed by the fluid unity of Christensen and Weber, he unhinges unspoken memories into the soil. “Song Of The Shadows” ends the album in a blend of classical guitar and flute over receding strings.

Along with Garbarek’s open splendor and admirable restraint, Weber’s snake-like pedal points comprise the ideal complement to Towner’s pinpoint metallic precision. Christensen’s cymbal work glistens as ever, proving that rhythm can be just as effective in a whisper. This is an album of sensations without images, one that reminds us that in order to have light, we must have umbrage, and this it brings in great quantity.

<< Steve Kuhn and Ecstasy: Motility (ECM 1094)
>> Collin Walcott: Grazing Dreams (ECM 1096)

Barre Phillips: Mountainscapes (ECM 1076)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1076

Barre Phillips
Mountainscapes

Barre Phillips bass
John Surman soprano and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet, synthesizer
Dieter Feichtner synthesizer
Stu Martin drums, synthesizer
John Abercrombie guitar
Recorded March 1976, Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

In his classic case study of Melanesian cargo cults, Mambu, anthropologist Kenelm Burridge introduced the concept of the myth-dream, which he reduces to “a series of themes, propositions, and problems which are to be found in myths, in dreams, in the half-lights of conversation, and in the emotional responses to a variety of actions, and questions asked.” According to Burridge, what makes any such cult successful is the immediacy with which its figurehead is able to articulate the myth-dream, unleashing a barely conscious longing to know and resolve that which lurks in our mental shadows. The resulting destabilization is a shared process of salvation. I dare to claim the music of Barre Phillips as providing that same function. It embodies a psychological imperative to bring into focus that which inhabits the half-light of our awareness, and fulfills that need through sound. The only difference is that, here, there is neither the promise of salvation nor of migration, but rather the simple need to soak in the immediate essence of wherever one may stand.

Mountainscapes is divided into eight parts of spirit-tugging magnificence, products of a mind that, though only cursorily represented on ECM, has done us a great service in recording his sounds for posterity. Mountainscape I hovers at the margins before unleashing a crackling free groove. The beautifully synthesized sounds and enthralling bass playing, not to mention an absolutely captivating soprano solo from reedman extraordinaire John Surman, give us a rich taste of resolution. It is an unexpected transition, one that jolts the heart into awareness every time. II is a quieter follow-up, enigmatic, peripheral. Like the myth-dream, it lingers just beyond our reach, baiting our desire to know it in full. III is an exquisite piece enhanced by organ and electronics. In IV, the bass becomes a huge rope hefted and swung like a mast cord in a seasoned shipmate’s hands before a saxophonic wind illuminates its sails. The drums never quite stand upright, crossing their feet instead in a continual swagger. V fades in with a synthesized arpeggio. Some sinuous bass notes and a stellar saxophone peek out from the woodwork here. The bass thrums like a groaning in the earth. Meanwhile, a synthesizer bubbles to the surface before fading into transfiguration. VI begins with a lavish wash of electronics embroidered by Phillips’s harmonic threads. It’s a short track, but for me the most effective on the album. VII begins with more pulchritudinous arpeggiation. The sax trails along, trying to place its footsteps in the same imprints as the bass trails not to far behind: the trio as mise-en-abyme. An electric guitar surprises us in the final part, wound by an enthralling sax to feverish heights and playing us out in a gentle finale.

In the end, this is music to be experienced rather than described. And so, I will stop trying.

<< Jan Garbarek: Dansere (ECM 1075)
>> Edward Vesala: Nan Madol (ECM 1077)

Gary Burton/Steve Swallow: Hotel Hello (ECM 1055)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1055 LP

Gary Burton
Steve Swallow
Hotel Hello

Gary Burton vibraharp, organ, marimba
Steve Swallow bass, piano
Recorded May 13/14, 1974 at Aengus Studio, Fayville, Mass.
Engineer: John Nagy
Produced by Manfred Eicher

The stirring piano and vibes of “Chelsea Bells (For Hern)” open this long-forgotten jewel among ECM’s many fruitful duo recordings. Lithe and nocturnal, its only light can be found in the sourceless reflections of its watery surface. Herein lie the beginnings of a shaded affair that shelters the most distant promise of love. “Hotel Overture + Vamp” pairs vibes with a tight constituent of guitar, bass, and Fender Rhodes for a full sound honed in metal. Swallow assumes a dual identity in the title track, playing both bass and piano. We get the only “un-Swallowed” motif with Mike Gibbs’s “Inside In,” a short and sweet number complete with wah-wah infusions, plenty of changes to keep our ears in check, and some fantastic vibe work to boot. The quaintly titled “Domino Biscuit” is a pleasant segue to the prismatic mood and lyrical bass of “Vashkar.” The most moving piece on the album, it is vividly evocative and honed to a mysterious edge. “Sweet Henry” is a more upbeat, jovial affair, sounding almost like the theme song for a seventies television show sans kitsch (or perhaps with just enough kitsch to satisfy our morbid curiosity). The “Impromptu” that follows is a lovely meditation in which each instrument blends into the other in a swell of monochrome.

Hotel Hello is a unique entry in the Burton catalogue, for it is the only one that feels as if it were painted in black and white. What it lacks in vibrancy (no pun intended) of color, it makes up for, if not surpasses, in its visceral sentiment. We feel this most acutely in the final track, “Sweeping Up,” which faithfully evokes the cleanup that follows any given event, so that no matter how beautiful an experience it is, one is bid to appreciate its refuse.

This is a consistently solid effort and arousing in its many changes. Built on the raw materials of studio trickery, its overdubbed experiments speak to the revelry of both musicians. Burton solos in such a way that while his tone and sound do soar, they always remain firmly embedded and connected to the surrounding thematic motivations. Burton plays on at least three simultaneous levels: anticipating the next note while striking the current one, having already written it in his mind during the one just passed. Swallow is equally exacting and works with a no less expansive vocabulary.

This is an album about alienation and the promise of its demise.

<< Richard Beirach: Eon (ECM 1054)
>> Ralph Towner/Gary Burton: Matchbook (ECM 1056)

Michael Naura/Wolfgang Schlüter: Country Children (ECM 2305 803 SP)

| Tyran Grillo

Michael Naura
Wolfgang Schlüter
Country Children

Michael Naura piano
Wolfgang Schlüter vibraharp, marimba
Recorded June 1977 at Radio Bremen
Engineer: Dietram Köster
Produced by Peter Schulze

Oftentimes, when pouring through the back catalogue of any label’s out-of-print releases, one stumbles on a few clunkers before arriving at any forgotten monuments. In my listening experiences thus far, ECM has flipped this dynamic considerably, offering a wealth of musical history to explore and appreciate. Among the ruins, however, is this humble little project, lost to the age of the label’s brief SP imprint, which lasted all of three albums. Country Children brings together pianist Michael Naura, whose music graces most of this set, and Wolfgang Schlüter. Originally trained as a drummer before a knee injury led him to mallet instruments, Schlüter cites Lionel Hampton (who he heard live in Berlin in 1952) and Milt Jackson as early influences. After a stint with the Michael Naura Quintet, which dissolved due to Naura’s illness, he played with the NDR Bigband for three decades. Since then, he has focused on teaching and remains one of Germany’s most formative vibraphonists.

“Ballade für eine Silberhochzeit” is a lush opener, almost the shadow of Gershwin’s “Summertime.” Over a beautiful two-chord ostinato, vibes dance exuberantly in a tightly restricted space, but with resplendent melodic freedom. “Schlafen” is a heavily improvised stem with the occasional blossom of composed material. Whereas its heavily convoluted beginnings might elsewhere seem a turgid dream from which one awakens into consonant resolution, here they imply the opposite: an opening of eyes within in sleep’s promised dream. “Take Us Down the River” is more exuberant, much in the vein of Keith Jarrett in the throes of a re-imagined standard. “Argentina” is alive with urban energy, a subdued elegy for remembered villages and mountains. The piano here is paired with a sprightly marimba, making for a drier and more evocative sound.

A flip of the record to Side B brings us to one of the most heartfelt renditions of Krzysztof Komeda’s theme from “Rosemary’s Baby” you are ever likely to hear. This is followed by the title track, which feels steeped in an unnamed nostalgia. “Sad Queen” is another stunner, and my favorite among the album’s originals. “Variation auf »Abendlied«” is dedicated to Peter Rühmkorf, the highly influential German writer whose voice appears alongside Naura and Schlüter in the first two ECM SP titles. It is another lovely offering, consolatory in its gentle persuasion, a track of subtle boisterousness filled with an abiding energy. The final track, “Call,” ends the album on a bittersweet note.

These musicians are like two halves of the same instrument. Their collaborations are beautifully conceived and executed, and make for a fitting complement to such likeminded pairings as Chick Corea and Gary Burton. It’s a wonder this album has yet to be reissued. I would think that, especially with the nod to Komeda, it would fit snugly alongside François Couturier’s Nostalghia and Tomasz Stanko’s Litania. This is a gorgeous and wide-ranging album, one equally fit as the background to other activities or for relaxed deep listening. An unsung gem, and easily one of my top picks currently vying for freedom from the ECM vault.

Gary Burton Quintet: Dreams So Real (ECM 1072)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1072

Gary Burton Quintet
Dreams So Real – Music of Carla Bley

Gary Burton vibraphone
Mick Goodrick guitar
Pat Metheny electric 12-string guitar
Steve Swallow bass
Bob Moses drums
Recorded December 1975, Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Gary Burton is one of those rare artists whose sound is immediately recognizable, yet who always manages to surprise and delight with his commitment to personal transformation. He is an artist of metamorphosis and of acknowledgment. Like Keith Jarrett, even at his most selfless moments he places each note as one would an important relic on an altar, such that his transitions from improvised to thematic material are hardly noticeable in the grander scheme of things. Fold into this batter of this already delectable recipe the music of Carla Bley, and you get an irresistible cake layered with energy and melody. We see this right away in the title opener, which spreads a thin layer of frosting over this metaphorical confection. “Ictus / Syndrome / Wrong Key Donkey” plays with the frantic jumps at which Burton is so skilled, beautifully accented by Pat Metheny’s electric 12-string. The tender vibraphone solo of “Jesus Maria” cradles the heart with its song, priming us for the gorgeousness that is “Vox Humana,” one of Bley’s crowning statements and interpreted here to perfection. After a modicum of resistance, the aptly titled “Doctor” heals the weary mind like good medicine. Burton shows off more fractured skills here, while Metheny swings in his virtuosic hammock. In spite of its title, “Intermission Music” is hardly a throwaway soundtrack to your break from more important activities. It is, rather, a beautiful flight into melodic skies, a lasting homage to the cinematic screen when it was still silver.

Bley’s tunes, with their chameleonic flair and peerless sense of forward motion, challenge any performer to be at his or her best. With this recording, the present assembly did much more than that by enlivening the music for an unsuspecting audience. As one of her most ardent champions, Burton has taken the soulful sounds of this one-time struggling waitress into that coveted place in our hearts where it belongs. Like skillfully sustained notes on a bowed instrument, Bley’s compositions are drawn in tight circles rather than in straight lines. Burton articulates every nuance, crossing dimensions with the ease of breathing. Metheny and mentor Goodrick are two leaves on the same stalk, each bowing to the wind to let sunlight peek through. Swallow’s presence is tender yet always palpable. And the attentive skills of Bob Moses shine at every rhythmic turn. While each of these musicians is easily spotted in any auditory congregation, they are immeasurably impressive as a collective unit. The album is recorded with ECM’s usual attentiveness, the vibes comfortably embracing the listener from both channels. Bley changed the landscape of jazz, quietly and one vamp at a time. And yet, hers a sound to which many have turned a deaf ear. One could hardly ask for a better wakeup call.

<< Tomasz Stanko: Balladyna (ECM 1071)
>> Pat Metheny: Bright Size Life (ECM 1073)

Jan Garbarek: Dis (ECM 1093)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1093

Jan Garbarek
Dis

Jan Garbarek tenor and soprano saxophones, wood flute
Ralph Towner 12-string and classical guitars, windharp
Brass Ensemble
Recorded December 1976 at Talent Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Debates over the “ECM sound” continue, though thankfully with waning fervor, in attempts to define that which never needed definition in the first place. Meanwhile, critical pundits are missing out on some spectacular music that would easily silence their concern over arbitrary categories. On Dis, his eighth album for the label, Jan Garbarek slipped off his extroverted garments and into a deep look inward. One immediately notices the windharp, one of the last instruments one might expect to hear on an album filed under “Jazz,” and which would make an ECM reappearance on Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum. The windharp anchors the album into place, appearing at its center and outer edges. Added to this are the extended soliloquies of guitarist Ralph Towner, whose unmistakable 12-string graces three of the album’s six tracks. For the rest, he casts longer shadows with nylon. Garbarek plays like a blind scribe, scoring his runes into ephemeral surfaces: water, earth, and air. Garbarek and Towner cover about as much territory as two musicians can. From the somber duet of “Krusning” (Ripple), cradled gently like a breaking tide into which footsteps are pressed and filled again with brine, to the wooden intonations of the title track, Dis enamors with its varied terrain. In the powerful “Skygger” (Shadows), Garbarek alternates between bold gestures and more unified punctuations. A brass section (Den Norske Messingsekstett) adds ceremony and locality. The guitar lifts its weary head and flutters its eyes in the glare of sunset, offering a solitary call for closure.

This album marked a formative transition for Garbarek, who wrings out here a soulful sound that is variously airborne and submerged. Comparing the cover art to his equally captivating Dansere, one is tempted to link them as a complementary pair. Where the latter is firmly planted in a wide and arid plain, Dis is downright oceanic, and questions its own division from the sky. The mystique of Dis puts me in mind of a film like Ron Fricke’s Baraka, in which words are superfluous, and melody and images reign as supreme forms of communication. We are never just listeners, but wayfarers in its deeply internal landscape, where space is no longer a viable marker of location, and only breath comes to define the presence of consciousness.

<< The Gary Burton Quartet with Eberhard Weber: Passengers (ECM 1092)
>> Steve Kuhn and Ecstasy: Motility (ECM 1094)

Kuára at RootsWorld

| Tyran Grillo

My review of ECM’s latest, Kuára, has just recently been published in RootsWorld online magazine. Please click here to read it. And while you’re there, explore RootsWorld’s many fabulous offerings, including other ECM-related reviews and interviews, not to mention a wealth of hidden treasures.