Author: Tyran Grillo

Victor Kissine: Between Two Waves (ECM New Series 2312)

| Tyran Grillo

Between Two Waves

Victor Kissine
Between Two Waves

Andrius Žlabys piano
Daniil Grishin viola
Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė violoncello
Andrei Pushkarev percussion
Gidon Kremer violin
Kremerata Baltica
Roman Kofman conductor
Recorded July 2011 at Lockenhaus Festival
Engineer: Peter Laenger
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
An ECM Production

Ears stretch sensitive sails,
dilated eyes lose fire,
over the silence swims
the night-birds’ soundless choir.
–Osip Mandelstam, “Stone”

After appearing in the shadows as arranger of Schubert’s G-major quartet in a reference recording by the Kremerata Baltica, and later in the company of Tchaikovsky, Russian-born and Belgium-based composer Victor Kissine at last gets the full ECM treatment in a program that spans his transition from chamber music to larger-scale pieces. In the latter vein we have the title composition for piano and string orchestra, composed in 2006 and revised in 2008. Built on the chorale Es ist genug of Bach’s Cantata BWV 60, it professes an interest in the spaces between notes on a score, if not also in their limpid pools of darkness, wherein swirl galaxies of further music. Here we find Kissine rekindling his association with the Kremerata Baltica, along with pianist Andrius Žlabys, whose initial dustings give materiality to the light of the piece’s opening breaths. The strings, too, carry their own torch, to which clings the truth-bringing qualities of emptiness. The relationship between the two is therefore neither that of dialogue nor of debate. It is, rather, an expression of two lesions on the same skin, separated by enough distance to be unseen from any single vantage point but close enough to be felt by wandering hands. The result is a troubling piece—which is not to say that it is difficult but merely a disturbance of waters, a node of silence in such a state of motion that it seems still. Kissine is thus that rare composer who, like Alexander Knaifel, is so attentive to negative space that it becomes positive. The profundity of this process cannot be overstated.

VK

The Duo (after Osip Mandelstam) of 1998/2011 pairs violist Daniil Grishin and cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė in one of the most exquisite classical pieces ever recorded for ECM. What begins in the barest breath turns to a grammatical innovation: instruments speaking before they open their mouths. The effect is such that, even when the bows call from more orthodox hilltops, they are switching tongues with the self-awareness of seasoned translators. Glissandi act like an insect’s feelers searching the air for pheromones. Overlapping gestures speak to a shared core among the instruments—a life force of shapeless, autumnal color. Catharses are few and far between, falling instead under the spell of exhalation.

Kremer joins his orchestra, along with percussionist Andrei Pushkarev, for the 2007 Barcarola. A self-styled “concerto in watercolor,” it is all the more intimate for being so full and seeks no answer but its own questioning. Footprints along string paths dissipate like liquid mercury on an uneven surface. Violin trills describe the dances of those whose bone structures bend and break in tensile patterns. And yet, despite a wide dynamic range, the drama is neither theatrical nor cinematic, but literary. It jumps like the eye across a page in anticipation of what happens next but finds itself being pulled back until the ending draws a circle of self-realization. And there you stand.

Andersen/Vinaccia/Smith: Mira (ECM 2307)

| Tyran Grillo

Mira

Andersen/Vinaccia/Smith
Mira

Arild Andersen double bass, electronics
Paolo Vinaccia drums
Tommy Smith tenor saxophone, shakuhachi
Recorded December 2012 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Bassist Arild Andersen, saxophonist Tommy Smith, and drummer Paolo Vinaccia are a rare trio not only in instrumentation, but also in the three-dimensionality of their interactions. Their debut album, Live At Belleville was a masterstroke of prowess and finesse, and introduced a band of such integrity that its messages were impossible to misunderstand. Now cloaked in the mystery of the recording studio—behind the doors of which magic is spun, spliced, and re-spun—these veteran collaborators deflect any expectations of sunlight in favor of a crepuscular palette.

Andersen Trio

Andersen again claims a majority of writing credits. Each tune is a different crater in the dark side of his moon. From first (“Bygone”) to last (“Stevtone”), his themes enable the framing and anchorage of a world far bigger than the sum of its parts. The former swings with a nocturnal air. It is a song in a windowless room, where moonlight remains but a dream and the crosshatching of people and cars below seems as far away as the stars above. Smith is the melodic body, while Andersen and Vinaccia stretch like shadows in streetlights. The latter track eases into its electronic drone by way of Smith’s inventive colorations, which seem to pull at invisible threads with mounting curiosity and inquisitiveness. Through a glacial exchange of places, Andersen takes the helm, following Vinaccia’s barest cymbals like a compass.

“Reparate” makes further use of Andersen’s electronics in much the same manner as his earlier Hyperborean. Over this distinctive blur of voices, Andersen explores the sensitivity behind his muscle. As if introducing a documentary that is about nothing but its own becoming, Smith picks up the thread and pulls it in leaps of intuition from sharp to rounded. Likewise balanced are the denser constructions of “Rossetti,” “Le Saleya,” and “Eight and More.” Whether hitching a rope between thematic vessel and port or soloing over Vinaccia’s rolling thunder, Andersen opens the eye of every needle, so that the drummer might find a way through. The mutual understanding here us as clear as the tune “Blussy” is smoky. Smith adds a slick edge to it all, but with a genuine roughness that gives eye-squinting traction to every turn.

Smith contributes “Kangiten,” a soaring and meditative shakuhachi solo which, despite its brevity, introduces an overtly spiritual band to the album’s spectrum (the title is a Japanese term for the elephant-headed Ganesh of the Hindu pantheon). Smith plays the bamboo flute again on “Raijin” (also Japanese, meaning “god of thunder”) in a ritualistic duet with Vinaccia that recalls Guo Yue and Joji Hirota’s kindred collaborations. Andersen’s title track returns us to the combination of strength and style that is his forte, his tone so full that background feels as present as foreground. Even the trio’s take on Burt Bacharach’s “Alfie” forges new alloy through the same admixture.

I wouldn’t hesitate to call Mira a profound leap forward for this trio, were it not for the simple fact of its falling inward. Not only is it a master class in harmony; it is an instructive example of self-assessment in the life of a musician whose best work may be yet to come.

(To hear samples of Mira, click here.)

Jack DeJohnette: Special Edition (ECM 2296-99)

| Tyran Grillo

2296-99 X

This treasure trove among treasure troves from the Old & New Masters series is the definitive archive of Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition. The Chicago-born drummer, notes Bradley Bambarger in the set’s informative booklet, has appeared on more ECM albums than any other session musician. But it’s as a leader that his most enduring marks were made, and we can be sure that this re-release will both revive positive associations in anyone who remembers the albums on vinyl and inspire pristine ones for the digital newcomer. Like the project’s leader, Special Edition was about the joy of energy and the energy of joy, spreading love and music in overlapping measure.

ECM 1152

Special Edition (ECM 1152; also included as part of ECM’s Touchstones series)

Jack DeJohnette drums, piano, melodica
David Murray tenor saxophone, bass clarinet
Arthur Blythe alto saxophone
Peter Warren bass, cello
Recorded March 1979 at Generation Sound Studios, New York
Engineer: Tony May
Produced by Jack DeJohnette

There could hardly be a more apt title for the inaugural effort of Jack DeJohnette’s most influential project. As in his formidable collaborations with Keith Jarrett and Gary Peacock, DeJohnette kneaded enough preservatives into this album to keep it as fresh as the day it was baked. Special Edition also served as a launching pad for reedmen David Murray and Arthur Blythe, both onetime members of the World Saxophone Quartet and poster children for the post-bop generation. Their edgy expositions nest seamlessly into the present company. “One For Eric” kicks off the set with a swinging bang as alto sax and bass clarinet inhabit the right and left channels, bass and drums dancing between them with the Neo-Classical ebullience for which the track’s namesake, Mr. Dolphy, was so well known. Jumping from one visceral solo to another (Murray on a notable roll here), the group traces the fine edge between groove and abstraction with the skill of Philippe Petit on a wire. This tasty appetizer prepares us for the largest course in “Zoot Suite,” an instant classic that has since become a touchstone of DeJohnette’s repertoire. A masterful weave of raw horn vamps and somber asides, it is equal parts jubilee and dirge. Peter Warren keeps the beat throughout and makes sure his bandmates never hibernate for too long. “Journey To The Twin Planet” applies heavy mystique to this musical visage, grinding across the skin like the detuned bass at its foundation. DeJohnette introduces a dazzling free-for-all that works its way into mind and body with equal alacrity. The album rounds out with two Coltrane covers. “Central Park West” is a beautiful ode strung along by arco bass and detailed by liquid reeds, while “India” opens pianistically and runs through a stellar turn from Blythe before settling into a smooth rejoinder.

Were I to classify this album, I would unhesitatingly file it under “Zombie Jazz,” for it walks like the living dead, enchanting us with its embodied blend of natural and unnatural movements. There is something hard won about this music that makes it all the more engaging. Agitation has rarely sounded so fantastic.

<< Haden/Garbarek/Gismonti: Magico (ECM 1151)
>> Ralph Towner: Old Friends, New Friends (ECM 1153)

… . …

ECM 1189

Tin Can Alley (ECM 1189)

Jack DeJohnette drums, piano, organ, congas, timpani, vocal
Chico Freeman tenor saxophone, flute, bass clarinet
John Purcell alto and baritone saxophones, flute
Peter Warren bass, cello
Recorded live at Studio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, September 1980
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

“One, two, you know what to do.”

Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition came up with another winner in this second ECM joint. Most of the blood of Tin Can Alley flows through the work of reedmen Chico Freeman (on tenor sax and bass clarinet) and John Purcell (on alto and baritone). Their voices—one rich with soul, the other provocative—define the title track. With the machine-gunned obbligato of DeJohnette and Warren covering their backs, they unhinge themselves. An epic baritone solo from Purcell drops the heaviest weight on the scale. These dialogues continue down the ramp of “Riff Raff,” even as Warren drops a heavy dose or two of his own. DeJohnette keeps tabs on every shift, all the way to his lusty swing in “I Know,” where a simulated crowd embraces his unbounded vocals. He also has a solo track, “The Gri Gri Man,” a veritable smoothie of congas, cymbals, toms, and organ. The occasional boom of timpani adds chunkiness to the texture.

Our journey through Tin Can Alley would be far from complete without “Pastel Rhapsody.” Another dialogue, this time between flutes, blends into a piano solo, which in its quiet manner paints the darkness with a meteor shower. From this sprouts a brassy stem, unfurling leaves and petals to the tune of something beyond our ken. Downright cosmic, and one of the most direct-to-heart ballads of the entire ECM catalog.

As with each of DeJohnette’s Special Editions, the cover photo is emblematic of the band’s free spirit, making music for the sake of its rewards. So if you happen to find yourself in this alley, they would much rather you stick around and feel what they’re doing than simply drop a dollar and move on.

<< Arild Andersen: Lifelines (ECM 1188)
>> Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays: As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls (ECM 1190)

… . …

2000 X

Inflation Blues (ECM 1244)

John Purcell alto and baritone saxophones, flutes, alto clarinet
Rufus Reid bass, electric Bass
Chico Freeman bass clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophones
Baikida Carroll trumpet
Jack DeJohnette drums, piano, vocals
Recorded September 1982 at Power Station, New York
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

For its third ECM outing, Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition incorporates the robust sound of Baikida Carroll, who lends his trumpet to four out of five tunes, all composed by our gracious frontman. “Starburst” drops us from the sky into Freeman’s didgeridoo-like bass clarinet of Freeman as Rufus Reid stretches his bass like a tectonic rubber band through a steady drum riff. Intriguing crosshatching of tenor (Freeman) and alto (Purcell) saxes makes for a lively combination. Purcell also provides excellent baritone traction in the album’s closer, “Slowdown,” which capitalizes on its promise only in the last stretch and ends in noteless clarinet breath. An infectious twang-and-slide pattern locks us into its groove from the start. “The Islands” is an amalgamation of influences and impressions, the glare of sun and sands healed through the surgery of improvisation. Its abstract couplings of winds and horns lead to a delicate but enraptured drum solo. The title track gives us more of what we might have expected from the last: a smooth Reggae flavor. DeJohnette provides the requisite staccato of a clavinet while singing this timely lament:

A dollar’s worth about thirty cents
You’re working your behind off and you still can’t pay the rent
The more money you make, the more Uncle Sam takes
And the unions still cry for more dues
Poor people stay poor; they’re defenseless and sore
They cry out of frustration against a sad situation
Breeds hunger and strife, and a miserable life
And you know the politicians aren’t even bruised
But they won’t find the solutions to win this confusion
That’s why I sing these inflation blues

Tenor and alto add diffusive commentary to the repeat before playing us out bittersweetly. The absence of trumpet is keenly felt in the ornamental “Ebony,” which lands us in the album’s plushest diversions. Freeman’s gorgeous soprano provides the first solo over DeJohnette’s rims and piano. A rubato structure molds each melodic cell like a bead on a wire, Purcell and Reid turning out a fine solo apiece before closing in the fluted and jaunty fade.

The cover is another classic one and expresses the band’s humility and commitment to its roots. Like the single dollar bill being dropped into Carroll’s hat, the least compensation we can offer is our undivided attention to this consistently engaging set of down-to-earth music. Then again, if the last album taught us anything, our least isn’t worthy enough.

<< Walcott/Cherry/Vasconcelos: CODONA 3 (ECM 1243)
>> Michael Galasso: Scenes (ECM 1245)

… . …

ECM 1280

Album Album (ECM 1280)

John Purcell alto and soprano saxophones
David Murray tenor saxophone
Howard Johnson tuba, saxophone
Rufus Reid bass
Jack DeJohnette drums, keyboards
Recorded June 1984 at Power Station, New York
Engineer: David Baker
Produced by Jack DeJohnette

An exercise in exuberance in memory of his late mother, Album Album opens with one of DeJohnette’s most sophisticated compositions ever committed to disc: “Ahmad The Terrible.” With an engaging klezmer-like joie de vivre and fantastic sopranism from Purcell, it delights from start to finish. The first of five originals, it leaps from the speakers like a body in motion. As if that weren’t jubilant enough, “Festival” stirs up a crowd’s worth of enthusiasm, made all the more inspiring through spirited drumming. “New Orleans Strut” makes tongue-in-cheek use of drum machine as DeJohnette plays a synth lead (his pianism in the opener is also worth noting). Over this bubbly layer the punchy stylings of both reedmen work their way from the groove in most visible fashion. Such is the case in “Third World Anthem,” another sophisticated peak. Playful whoops from horns add a strong emotional undercurrent toward the elegant, staccato finish. “Zoot Suite” makes a welcome cameo, cut in half from its first appearance on Special Edition. Here it is delicate, but with no loss of groove to show for it. The one compositional outlier is “Monk’s Mood,” in which horns and bass dance cheek-to-cheek as if in an old Hollywood black-and-white. It also engenders the album’s only blatant lapse into unrequited joy through the baritone of Howard Johnson.

The verve of DeJohnette and his bandmates keeps us anchored amid a flurry of glorious activity and, alongside Reid’s tight bassing, allows little time for sadness. Here is a space in which mourning must wear a smile, where the self is always secondary to those one loves.

This is primetime creation with late-night attitude, fantasies turned realities by musicians who care about everything they touch through their refusal of false appearances. By looking into this mirror, we might just see more of ourselves than we know, because the freedom of DeJohnette’s networks far predates the social ones in which we are now so deeply mired. Herein lies a lesson in art: those who laugh only at others know too little, those who laugh only at themselves know too much, and those who laugh along with others know all they need to know. There’s too much badness in the world to ignore the possibilities found in what’s left behind. In this regard, few releases stress the virtue of reissuing as much as this one. A special edition indeed.

<< Egberto Gismonti/Nana Vasconcelos: Duas Vozes (ECM 1279)
>> Michael Fahres: piano. harfe (ECM 1281 NS)

Beethoven: Diabelli-Variationen – Schiff (ECM New Series 2294/95)

| Tyran Grillo

Diabelli

Beethoven
Diabelli-Variationen

András Schiff Bechstein piano, Franz Brodmann fortepiano
Recorded July and December 2012 at Kammermusiksaal H. J. Abs, Beethoven-Haus, Bonn (Brodmann fortepiano) and Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano (Bechstein)
Tuning and technical assistance: Georg F. Senn (Brodmann) and Urs Bachmann (Bechstein)
Engineer: Stephan Schellmann
Produced by Manfred Eicher

As a performer, pianist András Schiff gifted his own magnum opus when he traversed Ludwig van Beethoven’s entire cycle of 32 piano sonatas for ECM’s New Series. Now he turns to the same composer’s own magnum opus (120, to be exact): the formidable Thirty-three Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli. The Diabelli Variations, as they are more popularly known, have since taken on a status unsurpassed in post-Bach keyboard literature. At the time (1819) he was working on the variations, his Missa solemnis was also taking shape, though the Diabelli project would prove to be no less large in scope. Beethoven was one of 50 composers to be commissioned for a variation on Diabelli’s apparently paltry waltz (the legendary assertion of Beethoven’s dislike of it is questionable and, at any rate, irrelevant), and the only among them to expand the task to such fruitful proportions. His fearless imagination works wonders with the bait dangled before him, to the extent where he not only steals it unscathed but also hooks the dangler in the process.

Schiff

Humor, invention, and fragmentation: these are the hallmarks of Schiff’s Diabelli. Or should one say, Diabellis, for indeed the pianist offers two readings of the work on polar instruments. The first flows from a 1921 Bechstein grand, by which the music’s kaleidoscopic qualities come into sharp focus. Under Schiff’s control, it’s obvious that each variation carries something of the last one forward—from revelry to stubbornness to whimsy. Schiff handles these changes with consummate fluency, and with a spirit of continuity that massages every kink out of the material at hand(s). The occasional caduceus of trills is enlivening and along with the collection’s most brilliant moments reveals new details. Some are smoother, more legato, others more oriented toward punctuation, but the range of invention makes of the Diabelli a Beethoven primer and shows a craftsman enjoying himself so much that he must share it with the world.

Hearing these same vignettes on a Franz Brodmann fortepiano from Beethoven’s time is akin to witnessing history come to life. Like an old film reel, it has the quality of an era into which we have never stepped but from which we have proceeded to unravel, making of its relics whatever we can along the way. There is a more immediate charge to them, something urgent and vibrant, if not also vital.

There’s no dearth of fine Diabellis to satisfy the appetites of the curious. For total command, one will want to compare Alfred Brendel or Sviatoslav Richter; for something fresher, Paul Lewis or Rudolf Serkin; and for both, Artur Schnabel (who also plays on a Bechstein) or Stephen Kovacevich. Fewer versions exist on fortepiano, most notably by Andreas Staier. But the chance to hear one of each from the same artist on the same record is unprecedented. In addition to Schiff’s enthralling performances, his interpretation has the benefit of the composer’s previously unknown original scores at hand. These provide valuable cues absent from previous interpretations and set a new benchmark for future ones. “Schiff does not just perform the music,” observes Paul Griffiths in the album’s booklet, “he performs the music performing itself,” and in the listening we add another layer of performance that rewards us with gold.

And on the topic of rewards, this album has more in store. By way of the Bechstein we have Beethoven’s final sonata, the Opus 111, which Schiff revisits with remarkable elasticity. Even more so than his last account for ECM, it combines fluidity and rigidity as if they were one and the same—at once a reflection of Beethoven’s writing and of Schiff’s ability to evoke (invoke?) it. The piano is crisp under his fingertips in the first movement, pliant in the massive second (a statement for all time if there ever was one), and bends under a deluge of melodic tensions toward a sweeping finale, throwing parting handfuls of ash and fairy dust.

Not to be left out, the fortepiano yields a majestic Six Bagatelles. The storyboarding of Beethoven’s Opus 126 has rarely been so lucid. It is as if the music were bound into a book, its materiality as undeniable as its sonority. From rolling syncopations to quiet expanse, these pieces sit at an intersection of vertical architecture and horizontal travel. In them beats the heart of a musician who lives to paint, applying colors over and over until they become three-dimensional.

(To hear samples of Diabelli Variationen, click here.)

Gary Peacock/Marilyn Crispell: Azure (ECM 2292)

| Tyran Grillo

Azure

Azure

Gary Peacock double bass
Marilyn Crispell piano
Recorded January and February 2011 at Nevessa Production, Saugerties, NY
Engineer: Chris Andersen
Produced by Gary Peacock and Marilyn Crispell

Bassist Gary Peacock and pianist Marilyn Crispell shared many fruitful years of collaboration in their trio with the late drummer Paul Motian. Yet those who had only intersected with these musicians on disc might never have been aware of a Peacock-Crispell duo project on the side. Azure solves the mystery of this collaboration in a crystal clear recording as far-reaching as it is cinched by mutual respect.

Peacock and Crispell

Their original set list is the very essence of unchained melodies, spooling back from the freely improvised title track in an alluring wave of creativity. This same tune comes as a breath of light after the game of shadows that precedes it. Though perhaps more in line with what one might expect from these legendary musicians, it’s all the more special for being the outlier of the program. It is indeed a portrait of open sky, but also a memory of storms. Looking back on its life, we encounter two further adlibs: the kindred “Blue” and the repartee of “Leapfrog,” each with a distinct inner swing and playfulness of spirit.

Beyond these stretch the open plains of Peacock’s compositions, each a journey in search of another. Spanning the gamut from robust exchanges (“Lullaby”) to the dance of marionette strings in the bassist’s arco draw (“Puppets”), his is a uniquely frayed brand of whimsy. And in a brief aside called “The Lea,” which is half bass solo and half duo, he speaks in picturesque tongues. Further solitudes await in the expository “Bass Solo” and “Piano Solo.” Where one puts a bluesier angle on the album’s development, the other knots itself until it cannot be pulled apart.

Crispell’s writing puts the crisp back into her surname and practically redefines the meaning of intimacy. The closely recorded “Patterns” opens with her running fingers before Peacock joins the chase, the two of them creating a tight circle of affirmation and magnifying a watchmaker’s craft so that every cog is audible. “Goodbye” emphasizes a contrast, but also reciprocation, of illustration and ornament in a duly bittersweet tune that is the album’s highlight. And the interlocking “Waltz After David M.,” like the whole, takes Crispell to new expanses.

The musicianship documented on Azure is of experienced and fearless order. The ship of these musicians even more so. It is unsinkable, and a ticket to ride should be required for even the most negligibly curious.

(To hear samples of Azure, click here.)

Christian Wallumrød Ensemble: Outstairs (ECM 2289)

| Tyran Grillo

Outstairs

Christian Wallumrød Ensemble
Outstairs

Christian Wallumrød piano, harmonium, toy piano
Eivind Lønning trumpet
Gjermund Larsen violin, Hardanger fiddle, viola
Espen Reinertsen tenor saxophone
Tove Törngren cello
Per Oddvar Johansen drums, vibraphone
Recorded May 2013, Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano
Engineer: Markus Heiland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

With Outstairs, pianist Christian Wallumrød has taken chamber jazz to new levels of intimacy, redefining its parameters and capabilities with atmospheric profundity. He achieves this through no small measure of humility, by which he imbues the music with the color of invitation. The risk is that, once you step through it, his door might never let you out again. Such is the irony of the album’s title, which promises escape yet embodies the reflective side of a two-way mirror.

Wallumrød

The title of the fifth track, “Startic,” is a suitable adjective to describe the cellular approach of Wallumrød and his ensemble. Each piece feels like the beginning of another, ad infinitum, until a sense of the whole begins to emerge, by which time your brain has already been soldered in. The dark pulse of “Stille Rock” begins at the piano before drummer Per Oddvar Johansen and fiddler Gjermund Larsen spin flesh around the ivory. With pathos not heard since Górecki’s Lerchenmusik, it nurtures a patchwork of unfinished sentences, which only the listener may complete.

Wallumrød Ensemble

Subsequent references abound. Whether intentional or not is immaterial, for no matter how much of their clothing has been worn before, Wallumrød’s alterations eat new fashion for breakfast. Some, like the Morton Feldman-esque “Very Slow” and the microtonal “Beatknit” (which resembles an abstracted compression of Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin), are more obvious. Others, like “Bunadsbangla” and “Tridili #2,” feel as if we should know them. Grounded by deep beats and lathered up with bubbling chords, they are the soundtracks to films not yet made. The soothing tenor of saxophonist Espen Reinersten and earthy strains of cellist Tove Törngren are silhouettes of trees in the latter excursions, while Wallumrød’s harmonium and Eivind Lønning’s trumpet percolate through the leaves in the form of sunlight. These absorbent textures cloak an outer resonance in the guise of a seventh band member.

The album’s remainder is for the most part percussively centered. Regardless of instrument or title—be it in the brushstrokes of “Folkskiss” or the toy piano of “Ornament,” the darker sustains of “Third Try” or biological crop circles of the title track—an underlying clockwork reveals itself in every rustling and reedy song. As title of the concluding “Exp” implies, this program represents a leveling up for the ensemble. And as its final climbs find themselves lured by whispers of a forgotten darkness now returned as a gift, we have no option but to succumb to the heat of understanding. The lava is our birthplace, and it is to the lava we must return.

This reality, unglued.

(To hear samples of Outstairs, click here.)

Morton Feldman: Violin and Orchestra (ECM New Series 2283)

| Tyran Grillo

Violin and Orchestra

Morton Feldman
Violin and Orchestra

Carolin Widmann violin
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra
Emilio Pomàrico conductor
Recorded October 2009 at Sendesaal des Hessischen Rundfunks, Frankfurt
Recording producer: Hans Berhnhard Bätzing
Recording engineer: Rüdiger Orth
Executive producer for Hessischer Rundfunk: Andrea Zietzschmann
An ECM/Hessischer Rundfunk Co-production

Alex Ross is one of many to characterize Morton Feldman’s music as being “glacially slow and snowily soft,” echoing the sentiments of Feldman specialists like Thomas DeLio and even Feldman himself, who employed “slow, soft” as a designation in his piano music, the so-called Last Pieces of 1959 being one example. All the while, such readings fail to out the culprit of human perception that defines their pathos to begin with. It’s not that Feldman’s “sound” (as if it were ever reducible to one) is inherently lethargic, but that we are simply ill-equipped to handle its cosmic speeds.

Feldman

We may project whatever we like onto the gossamer screen of Feldman’s hard-won life, but at the end of the day there is only the beginning of the music. That being said, there is great value in the analogic glacier to the new listener, one who comes to Feldman thinking he was a mere minimalist, only to discover that, like a glacier, he was symphony of stasis and movement in which no stratum was ever an exact replica of its neighbors. His Violin and Orchestra of 1979 is therefore not only a masterpiece in the biographical sense, but also in terms of its geological significance. Although Feldman modeled his writing off abstract impressionism, it traces fault lines so robustly scarred that no earthquake could impress them with abstraction.

Over its 1500+ bars, this multiple entity achieves sonority through rupture. Its beginnings beg not earthly but extraterrestrial comparisons, skimming black hole rims and flirting with a gravitational pull of such unfathomable power that its language can only be written by bow. Wielding said bow is violinist Carolin Widmann, while Emilio Pomàrico wields his own writing instrument in the form of a baton, suspended like a satellite antenna within the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra’s magnetic fields. Also among the forces gathered for this piece—massive in number but spectral in effect—is a piano’s droning paintbrush. Just as important as the violin, it is the below to the latter’s above and connects chakras in constellatory networks of nerve impulses. Neither is a soloist for the mere pleasure of orchestral accompaniment; they are indivisible as sunlight and water.

If any overarching thing can be said of Feldman, it is that he was a generous atmospherist. The beauty of Violin and Orchestra is that one will experience it as either a mystery or the most natural phenomenon imaginable—if not both. You might search for motifs, for concerto structure, but will come up only with handfuls of something far more organic. The variety of textures alone is proof of concept. Pulsing lower strings, light pizzicati, and tonal shifts comprise the circle, while the violin sews its holes into scars. There is an inner and outer skin to the music. Both belong to a beast that cowers below the earth’s surface, sucking its thumb and singing whatever lullabies it can dredge up from the pond of memory. It inhales, exhales. It takes continuous stock of its own emotional inventory and catalogs it finitely, like a machine. The violin’s higher-pitched notes are at some moments its veneer, at others the tone of an inner ear, at still others the sting of total recall. Even after the violin fades through a chain of percussion responses, it leaves behind a single open wound that can only be salved by our commitment to its passing.

Valentin Silvestrov: Sacred Songs (ECM New Series 2279)

| Tyran Grillo

2279 X

Valentin Silvestrov
Sacred Songs

Kiev Chamber Choir
Mykola Hobdych conductor
Recorded 2008 at St. Michael’s Cathedral, Kiev
Engineer: Andrij Mokrytskij
Project coordinator: Tayisa Yurieva
Recording by Kyiv Choir Productions
Co-production of Kyiv Choir Productions/ECM Records

Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice:
have mercy also upon me, and answer me.

The Book of Genesis tells us that in the beginning was the Word and that the Word was sound. But what if it was music? What if God, in contemplating the creation of Creation, sang being into being? If so, it might have sounded something like the Sacred Songs of Valentin Silvestrov. In this seventh ECM album devoted to the Ukrainian composer’s music, we thusly encounter a sense of space unique to the Russian liturgy: the more the voices unify in movement, the more they lift from one another like temporary tattoos, leaving behind mirror images that wash away with baptism into infinite oneness with the Holy Spirit. Sin as sun. Firmament as fundament.

Under the direction of Mykola Hodbych, the Kiev Chamber Choir likewise turns breath into physical substance, each particle activated by thrum of flesh and shaping of air. Although divided into separate collections, Silvestrov’s compositions are together a whole song—if not a song of wholeness. Their liturgical relationships, in other words, expound on mysteries of faith through an abiding faith in mysteries. The grandest statement in this regard is to be found in the Songs For Vespers (2006), which undoes two millennial knots to reveal the single thread within. “Come, Let Us Worship” invites listener and singer alike to set ancient jewels in a modern crown. Its shifting harmonies are sunrays incarnate, each taking ablution by shadow. Soloists blot the remaining songs with their supernova curls, each a messenger of immaculate peace. Among them, alto Tetiana Havrylenko glows without the need for a telescope, revealing the inner venation of sung text, as would a carpenter in wood when staining a table. Tides do not ebb and flow here on a horizontal plane, but revolve in many directions around the surfaces of natural grammars. It is only by brush of torch that their script becomes discernible to the human ear. As the music nurtures its exponents, it riddles temptation with intensities of understanding only found in scripture. Voices change their clothing in a vestry of the heart until their constitution is indistinguishable from the blood that fills its chambers. And in the slumber of a “Silent Night,” footprints leave their impressions in plush snow, extending from a childhood when the world’s shadows were merely the stuff of storybooks and dreams, now creeping into a lagoon of basses.

The Psalms And Prayers of 2007 overtake more distant mountains with their sunrise. On their watery surface floats the contradiction of a mortal life, which reaches upward even as it sinks into pleasure. In thinning the scrim of resistance to love, these melodies demonstrate one’s relationship to God as a process. Each glorifies a name that cannot contain its own holiness. With so much brightness to drink in, it is all one can do to keep from drowning. A trio of diptychs follows with further psalms and refrains. At once brooding and angelic, these cycle through pity and forgiveness and bend under the grind of faith and action. All roads then lead to the Three Spiritual Songs of 2006, by which mirrors and eyes change places, so that it is we who come to reflect ourselves.

Silvestrov’s output, much like his input, has always been concerned with memory. In this instance, it is a memory of birth that haunts the soul in search of knowledge before creation. In response to that original song, which gave us life and bodies with which to know it, only song can suffice. These are the lullabies that sustain us when the world cages us and turns out the lights. These are the hymns that remind us of the weary when we enjoy the comforts of congregation and rest.

(To hear samples of Sacred Songs, click here.)

Paul Motian (ECM 2260-65)

| Tyran Grillo

2260-65 X

As ECM producer Manfred Eicher tells Ethan Iverson in the booklet that accompanies this timely Old & New Masters edition, Paul Motian (1931-2011) was more than a drummer. He was also a poet. Motian had a sense about the pen which, like his impulses at the kit, never bothered to obsess over the whole picture. He was more concerned with the bare minimum pieces to indicate the theme of any puzzle on which he laid hands. That was enough for him. The six albums collected here are therefore to be taken not as a grand narrative or musical résumé, but as four border pieces and two middles. That should be enough for us.

It is significant that the cover art for this set—part of ECM’s coveted Old & New Masters series—should break the trend of previous releases, all of which are clothed in minimal text against white backgrounds. The image originally jacketed Conception Vessel, an album conceived at the express behest of Eicher, who encouraged Motian to lead his debut album as composer and leader in 1972. So began a four-decade relationship, of which only a fraction is represented in the present collection. Its radial design may be read as a sigil for the man himself: a creative sun whose light abandons center for periphery.

ECM 1028

Conception Vessel (ECM 1028; also included as part of ECM’s Touchstones series)

Paul Motian percussion
Keith Jarrett piano, flute
Charlie Haden bass
Sam Brown guitar
Leroy Jenkins violin
Becky Friend flute
Recorded November 25/26, 1972 at Butterfly and Sound Ideas Studios, New York
Engineers: Kurt Rapp and George Klabin
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Considering that Paul Motian was 41 when he recorded Conception Vessel, it’s clear to see why his disposition was so amenable to the dawn. As a human being, his voice had already come into its own and needed only the blessing of the score to give it shape without words. Then again, there are the titles, which for all their naked evocativeness retain an enigmatic patina. “Georgian Bay” congeals with the steady plucking of guitarist Sam Brown, who cuts a striking, if subtle, figure across the album’s filmic canvas. Supported only by a smattering of cymbals and Charlie Haden’s crab-walking bass lines, the tune betrays little of Motian’s prowess, saving it instead for “Ch’i Energy,” a flurried solo through which his centrality blossoms in non-confrontational power. This makes the looser affair of “Rebica” all the more lyrical. Haden is in peak form in this guitar-bass-drums setting. One moment finds him providing ground support, while in the next he has already ventured off into more airborne ruminations. Brown returns after a pensive resistance, flirting with the music’s surface like a drowsy Derek Bailey. The title track raises the curtain for Keith Jarrett’s spotlight, which strangely does little to change the album’s surface texture. Despite a lack of (discernible) melody, the interplay between piano and drums yields talented ramifications. Though not the easiest piece of music to put one’s finger on, Jarrett’s fiery exuberance as he whoops his way along makes it one of the most intriguing cuts on the bill. The flute and percussion of “American Indian: Song Of Sitting Bull” draw up a suitable contract for the pianist’s wind-work in combination with Motian’s rattlesnake maracas. “Inspiration From a Vietnamese Lullaby” adds bass and the violin of Leroy Jenkins to the same in the interest of new improvisatory heights. These are exactly the kind of rituals that Jarrett lived for in the 70s (see his recently unearthed Hamburg ’72, also with Haden and Motian), and the oracle-like qualities of their architecture hold up well beneath the weight of time.

Despite being headed by a drummer, Conception Vessel eschews the trappings of mundane grooves as indication of Motian’s lifelong mapping of branches over roots. The jacket art again proves instructive, describing a sound oriented toward invisible directions yet which is also mothered by the soil. It is furthermore a worthy example of ECM’s early sound and openness to those at the head of the line who share the label’s ongoing passion for pushing, if not defining, boundaries.

<< Dave Holland Quartet: Conference Of The Birds (ECM 1027)
>> Garbarek/Andersen/Vesala: Triptykon (ECM 1029)

… . …

ECM 1048

Tribute (ECM 1048)

Carlos Ward alto saxophone
Sam Brown acoustic and electric guitars
Paul Metzke electric guitar
Charlie Haden bass
Paul Motian percussion
Recorded May 1974, Generation Sound Studios, New York
Engineers: Tony May and Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Motian’s second ECM project finds the multitalented drummer-composer in comforting repose. Transcending the pianistic sound that mystified his earlier efforts, Motian pulls in the loose strands of guitarists Sam Brown and Paul Metzke to his ever-expanding loom. Bookending the set are two Brown/Haden/Motian trios. The flowering classical guitar and tenderly applied drumming of “Victoria” provide a magnetic backdrop for Carlos Ward’s smoldering alto, all the while developing into a snapshot of urban night. One imagines Brown sitting on a balcony ledge, drawing from the squalor below (where Ward plays on a streetlit corner) a most soulful evocation of the dark’s hidden messages. Clouds part, but reveal no stars. Haden’s “Song For Ché” is even more somber. Ward’s absence makes room for the composer’s gorgeous solo as maracas slither by with the grace of a rattlesnake in a rather distanced version of this major tune. Ornette Coleman’s “War Orphans” is the nucleus of the album. Soulfully rendered and lovingly arranged, it drifts in on a tide of history. Our frontman shines in “Tuesday Ends Saturday,” a more blatantly post-bop affair that slides briefly into brighter days. Amplified guitars converge like a doubled Marc Ribot before careening their separate ways, even as heavy cymbal crashes from Motian threaten to drown out the other instruments (clear separation in the recording, however, ensures this never happens). Which leaves us with “Sod House,” a crepuscular and blurrily moving image in which guitars ride a crest of bass and drums.

Astute extemporization and feel for melody make this one of ECM’s most evocative first-decade releases. Motian finds songs in every instrument. He gives us little indication as to who or what the album is a tribute to, but I suspect it need be nothing more than a tribute to the journey of making music, and to the indomitable spirit of an art form that is forever unpacking itself along the way.

<< John Abercrombie: Timeless (ECM 1047)
>> Keith Jarrett: Luminessence (ECM 1049)

… . …

ECM 1108

Dance (ECM 1108)

Paul Motian drums, percussion
David Izenzon bass
Charles Brackeen soprano and tenor saxophones
Recorded September 1977 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

In 1977, Motian set a new precedent when, with this first trio album, he loosed his brand of chamber jazz into the world. The late David Izenzon on bass and fellow Coleman cohort Charles Brackeen on reeds completed the package, tied up nicely with six of Motian’s engaging compositions. The titles thereof seem only loosely linked to their denouement, assuming they were ever meant to be descriptive in the first place. Either way, the results are so visceral that headings need not apply.

Brackeen is primarily known as a tenor player, but on Dance he employs the soprano almost exclusively. The only exception is in the penultimate “Prelude,” where at last we get a blast of his guttural métier for a marked change in diction. It writhes with the power to deepen the trio’s abandoned sound from sweeping agitation to smoky elegy in a single change of embouchure. Contrast this with the Garbarek-like salutations of “Kalypso” or the relaxed sopranism of “Asia,” which walks a trail of meandering beauty that is the album’s calling card. As can be expected, there are intenser moments to be had, as in the tight squeals of the opening “Waltz Song” and the wilder forays of the title cut. The latter also offers some fine duo-ship with Izenzon as well as with Motian, who seems to drop his sticks in great number from varying heights. Through the glitter of “Lullaby” we hear the stars of our slumber turned into song. The bass hints at a long-dead groove in which we can only grasp a sliver of faded glory. We revel instead in its ruins, where the dance really takes place. There, it is the bass that lulls us, pulling its feet under the covers in a frigid evening, curled like a child hoping to awaken from a bad dream.

Dance is a wayfarer’s song. Yet the trio is passionately disinterested in the wandering itself and has eyes instead for the geographies it has yet to tread. Like a spring that winds itself tighter but never snaps, every melody is packed with lethal energy. The music relies on this tension, compressed like continental plates beneath unfathomable oceans. As land grows scarcer, the musical remainder becomes our vegetations, our lifeways, our civilizations, and we are left standing in the middle, watching as history takes its first steps.

<< Eberhard Weber Colours: Silent Feet (ECM 1107)
>> Dave Holland: Emerald Tears (ECM 1109)

… . …

ECM 1138

Le Voyage (ECM 1138)

Paul Motian drums, percussion
Jean-François Jenny-Clark double bass
Charles Brackeen tenor and soprano saxophones
Recorded March 1979 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Le Voyage is dear to my heart for opening with one of ECM’s crowning achievements in production, musicianship, and song. As Brackeen’s bluesy soprano in “Folk Song For Rosie” sweeps across that sandy backdrop of bass—courtesy of the late Jean-François Jenny-Clark, replacing David Izenson in the trio’s previous lineup—and Motian’s brushed drums, one can be sure that more beautiful landscapes will be few and far between. The sax fades into the mystical silence from which it arose, making way for gelatinous bassing before a mournful return. A careful selection of gongs and drums awaits in “Abacus,” in which Brackeen dazzles with an enlivening tenor solo. After this detour, Motian breaks into his own erratic asides. The studio miking distances his voice, making it seem as if he were a barely visible conjurer stretching his arms across time and space to produce an impossible array of statements before our very eyes. The arco intro of “Cabala/Drum Music” glides into Motian’s fluttering hands, which bid bass and tenor to speak in themes. Brackeen and Jenny-Clark shine again in “The Sunflower,” pouring a vast oasis of energy into which the final, and title, track dips its feet with measured grace.

Though the title of Motian’s fourth ECM album is in the singular, its results are undeniably in the plural. The unspoken virtuosity required here humbly defers itself to three credos: Melody, Moment, and Mood. Its sounds come to life only behind the closed eyes of a relaxed mind and body. Each solo feels connected to the others, as if by tendon, lighting our inner landscapes with signifiers that over eons blur into one soft and silent flame. This album epitomizes the “ECM sound,” even as it transcends all such arbitrary categories in favor of a more immediate form of communication that looks beyond the physical self and into the translucent thread that connects it to all else.

Those looking for a groove may want to move on, but do so at their own peril, for they will be missing out on one of Motian’s finest.

<< Eberhard Weber: Fluid Rustle (ECM 1137)
>> Mick Goodrick: In Pas(s)ing (ECM 1139)

… . …

ECM 1222

Psalm (ECM 1222)

Paul Motian drums
Bill Frisell guitar
Ed Schuller bass
Joe Lovano tenor saxophone
Billy Drewes tenor and alto saxophones
Recorded December 1981 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

The Paul Motian Band, short-lived in the incarnation captured here, enables a curious experience with Psalm. “Motian” may as well mean “mystical,” for such are the turns that await the curious listener. It’s not that he has access to some hidden pocket in the ether, from which he pulls a wallet of compositional currency. He simply trusts in his fellow musicians enough to follow wherever they might lead. And what a group to be led by. Between Joe Lovano’s singing tenor and the serpentine licks of guitarist Bill Frisell, not to mention an infusion of supremely warm engineering, even critical listeners are sure to find something of intrigue.

Some of the album’s landscapes, like those of the lush title track and “Fantasm,” cultivate a heat-distorted crop of pliant reeds and guitars. One is tempted to read dreams into them, when in fact nothing can be so fleeting as those enigmas that already make life even less graspable. Such would seem to be the meaning behind titles like “White Magic,” which, despite their serrated edges and deep thematic scouting missions, are nebulous constructions at heart. Other diversions, such as “Boomerang” and “Mandeville,” have Frisell written all over them, to say nothing of his solo “Etude,” a liquid font of melodic wisdom that stretches like an acrobat during warm-up. Motian does occasionally step into the foreground (“Second Hand”), but would rather bask in the viscosity of his own skeletal tunes, and in the tenderness of his band mates’ refractions of them—Ed Schuller’s rosy bass work in “Yahllah” being one example.

Though Psalm may be rightly considered a classic, it doesn’t aspire to be. It is instead an altogether metaphorical experience to enjoy uninterrupted and in total acceptance. These musicians have surely seen more lucid days, but may remember few so enchanting as this.

<< Adelhard Roidinger: Schattseite (ECM 1221)
>> Jan Garbarek: Paths, Prints (ECM 1223)

… . …

ECM 1283

it should’ve happened a long time ago (ECM 1283)

Paul Motian drums, percussion
Bill Frisell guitar, guitar synthesizer
Joe Lovano tenor saxophone
Recorded July 1984 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

It was by sheer coincidence that I first heard it should’ve happened a long time ago on the very day I later learned of its leader’s death. The title, therefore, will always be a poignant one for me, as if to say: You should’ve seen him while you still had the chance. And while it saddens me to have to add Paul Motian to the ever-growing list of uncompromising artists I will never experience firsthand (Montserrat Figueras would die one day later), I also feel fortunate to have encountered this awe-inspiring album so late in the game. New music has tended to come into my life only at such times as I’ve been prepared for it, and this album is no exception, for had I heard it even a few years ago I might never have given it a second listen. Suffice it to say when I heard it on 22 November 2011, it left an indelible mark, rendered as an emotional tattoo by the sad news that followed it.

The cast of should’ve is rounded out by guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano, both truly coming into their own at the time of this recording (1984). Lovano’s fluid tenor proves a superb complement to Frisell’s briny swells, positively singing with a dark amethyst tone in the opening title cut. “Fiasco,” on the other hand, foregrounds Frisell, who sounds like a synth in its death throes (all the while making it sing). Meanwhile, Lovano stills this discomfort with heavy inoculations of medical wisdom. This is followed by a gorgeous reprise of “Conception Vessel” that depicts the changes Motian had undergone since the selfsame masterwork had been laid down twelve years prior. One now finds a more internal evocation, brought to the consistency of bubbling lava by Frisell’s quiet heat and Lovano’s pockets of air.

Like the album as a whole, “Introduction” is another dip inward. This somber solo from Frisell primes us for the resplendent territories of “India.” Motian paints an awesome picture, which with each sparkling step brings us closer to its thematic core, traced in relief by Lovano’s lilting horn. “In The Year Of The Dragon” indeed slinks and curls like the long, scaled creature of myth, cutting rhythms across the sky with every whip of its tail. The licks of Lovano’s sax are like the glint of an eye trained curiously ahead, even as its energy radiates through the fields and villages below. Frisell’s picking is at once straight-edged and ess-curved. We end with “Two Women From Padua,” which lays Lovano over Frisell’s breaking circuits—this a mere preamble for gossamer unraveling. Lovano crawls like a spider along Frisell’s webs, strung between those raspy branches of Motian’s drums.

Despite the occasional burst of abstraction, this is a thoroughly relaxing album and one easy to get lost in. The musicians’ talents are affirmed in their restraint. While this may not be the frontman’s most brilliant album, the Motian experience was never about “brilliance,” but rather about openness to the darker corners of the ever-evolving psyche known as jazz. Now that he is gone, may that darkness welcome him into peaceful rest.

<< Chick Corea: Voyage (ECM 1282)
>> David Torn: Best Laid Plans (ECM 1284)