Author: Tyran Grillo

Charles Lloyd: Lift Every Voice (ECM 1832/33)

| Tyran Grillo

Lift Every Voice

Charles Lloyd
Lift Every Voice

Charles Lloyd tenor saxophone, flute, taragato
Geri Allen piano
John Abercrombie guitar
Marc Johnson double-bass
Larry Grenadier double-bass
Billy Hart drums
Recorded January and February 2002 at Oceanway and Cello Studios, Los Angeles
Engineer: Michael C. Ross
Assistants: Robert Reid and Brian Vibettes
Sound: Joe Harley
Mastering: Bernie Grundman
Produced by Charles Lloyd and Dorothy Darr
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher

“Truth is One, sages call it by various names.”
–Rig Veda

On the night of September 11, 2001, Charles Lloyd was scheduled to appear at New York’s Blue Note jazz club. In the wake of that morning’s unforgettable tragedy, he took the concert’s postponement as an opportunity to meditate on a response. Out of this impulse came Lift Every Voice, which in spite of the events that provoked it is more spiritual than political, opting for a message born in words yet conveyed without them.

Lloyd has been shepherding trusting flocks with the crook of his bell for many decades, yet perhaps none so solemn as the one gathered here. Joined by pianist Geri Allen, guitarist John Abercrombie, bassists Marc Johnson and Larry Grenadier, and drummer Billy Hart, he enacts a sonic prayer that only two CDs can contain: one for each hand in supplication. Looking at the final tracks of both discs, we find such balance achieved. Where “Hafez, Shattered Heart” ends the first disc with a profound tárogató solo, opening a dream of desert to reveal another of water, the second concludes on a high note with “Prayer, The Crossing.” The latter’s visceral energy is the key to all that moves between it and the opening “Hymn to the Mother,” another Lloyd original that expands the session’s reach to the stars and back.

Lloyd’s material is the strongest—or, more precisely, is of an altogether different strength than the standards, hymns, and spirituals with which it shares breath—for it is also his most selfless. Whether it’s the bluesy Abercrombie vehicle “East Virginia, West Memphis,” the autumnal colors of “Angel Oak,” or the Allen-focused nostalgia trips “Beyond Darkness” and “Nocturne,” Lloyd finds his voice through the attunement of his band. He finds it further in the darkened fields and pathways left behind by those—named and nameless—who are no longer with us. Marvin Gaye flickers between realms in a distinct arrangement of “What’s Going On,” smooth as a northern light. The intimate repose of “Amazing Grace” (Lloyd plays this as if for the first time) and “You Are So Beautiful” defies all associations, flowering behind closed eyes and open heart. The lyrical cartilage of his support system follows every step as he flutters through the changes, a moth courting the flame.

Noteworthy also are the Duke Ellington tune “I’m Afraid,” a quintessential display of Lloyd’s tonal prowess, and Billy Strayhorn’s “Blood Count,” by far one of the most touching five minutes Lloyd has ever recorded. Two pieces by Cuban protest singer Silvio Rodríguez, “Te Amaré” and “Rabo de Nube,” thicken the pot with some heartfelt craft, both highlights not to be missed. They quiver at slightest contact, cups filled to the brim. All of which infuses eternal flowers like “Go Gown Moses” and the title hymn with constellations galore.

Terror is the soil of togetherness, and in chaotic times the sunflowers are our singers. In their company and by their guidance we open our mouths to the sky. Lloyd is one such singer. Yet he does not lift his voice. Rather, he lets the high notes crack, lest they distract us from the healing taking place beneath them. Thus he gives attention to the impermanence of things. A philosophical move, perhaps, but an inevitable one that reminds us of music’s fragile architecture. He is neither leader nor follower, but a border without countries. He is an artist who stands before us, poised to weep as the world weeps around him.

Manfred Schoof Quintet: Resonance (ECM 2093/94)

| Tyran Grillo

Resonance

Manfred Schoof Quintet
Resonance

Manfred Schoof trumpet, flugelhorn
Michel Pilz bass clarinet
Jasper van ‘t Hof piano, electric piano, organ
Rainer Brüninghaus piano, synthesizer
Günter Lenz double-bass
Ralf-R. Hübner drums
Recorded August 1976 (Scales), December 1977 (Light Lines), and November 1979 (Horizons) at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Thomas Stöwsand
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher

Resonance compiles two discs of vital material from the early JAPO releases by German trumpeter Manfred Schoof: Scales, Light Lines, and Horizons. The first two albums are presented in full, while only half of the third is excerpted. As co-member with bass clarinetist Michel Pilz of the Globe Unity Orchestra (another group with a hefty JAPO footprint), Schoof was a hot ticket in the 1970s, when his quintet was all the rage in the European free jazz scene.

Schoof

What distinguished him from the avant-garde demimonde was an insistence on melodic integrity. For Schoof, “the term ‘free’ not only stands for a specific style of jazz that, in its beginnings, opposed with revolutionary gesture everything redolent of the past and reminiscent of tradition but rather the freedom to choose between a multitude of very different means of expression. Tradition, therefore, is viewed as a past experience that merges with and enriches a new style of sound.” His band mates in these recordings include Pilz, pianists Jasper van ‘t Hof and Rainer Brüninghaus, bassist Günter Lenz, and drummer Ralf-R. Hübner, most of whom will be familiar to the more adventurous ECM listeners.

Scales (JAPO 60013)
The title track of Scales opens both album and set with a primal trumpet cry. It is Schoof’s calling card: a rip in the ether from which flows undeniable light. Van ‘t Hof poeticizes this light from a place beyond waking. And indeed, the more instruments are added, the dreamier the music becomes. Over time, Pilz’s gorgeous rasp adds tactility, so that surreal gestures begin to feel familiar. Pilz stands out also in “Ostinato,” which finds him sharing a stepwise ground line with Lenz. We are so fully mired in this swampy unison that when he breaks free from the waves, his voice feels like a shaded benediction in what is easily among the finest tracks in the ECM archive. Van ‘t Hof’s organ drone is also notable here. Over it drums seem to describe abandoned castles, stone by stone, until they loom before us unscathed by time. The keyboardist provides deep color shifts throughout the program, evoking early Steve Kuhn vis–à–vis electric piano in “For Marianne” and spacy atmospheres in “Weep And Cry.” The former’s cloud rolls give Schoof vast chromatic freedom, while the latter evokes sunset before cooling into a twilit canopy, now alive as the darkness reveals its dance through the bass clarinet. The scene closes its eyes with “Flowers All Over” in the album’s most joyous music. Schoof rides a harmonic dolphin, plunging variously into intuitive digs, likewise inspiring Pilz to grand emotional heights.

Scales
Original cover

Light Lines (JAPO 60019)
“Source” introduces the second disc with the world of Light Lines. The middle of this JAPO sandwich finds Schoof swimming in an ocean of fire. Overall, the sound is more sparkling by way of Hübner’s clear and present kit work. The album boasts not only its own title track, a splash of sonic goodness in which Schoof’s trumpet is the very image of a bird in flight, but also that of the set as a whole. “Resonance,” for that matter, is more than a catchy word. It is the credo of a musician whose focus unnerves with its precision. Working through the changes like a card shark riffling to his cull, he holds our attention by means of powerful misdirection. “Criterium” and “Lonesome Defender” round things out, on the one hand, the glint of a blade catching sunlight and, on the other, an evocative blend of sweet and savory flavors.

Light Lines
Original cover

Horizons (JAPO 60030)
Brüninghaus steps from the Jan Garbarek/Eberhard Weber mold and into open Horizons, where he adds lilting undercurrents and cascading solos throughout. Pilz’s fierce, uncompromising blues is downright brilliant amid the pianist’s sparkle in the waterlogged title track, in which Schoof emerges like a butterfly from its chrysalis, fluttering to and fro with the determination of a man on fire in search of water. In “Hope,” he sweeps a guiding hand through waves of thematic life, Pilz ever the underwater acrobat. The band rounds up a school of fish hungry for soul in “Old Ballad,” with Brüninghaus and Lenz hauling a fair catch each, while the final “Sunset” fronts the trilogy’s brightest stars, Schoof and Pilz, against a gradual rhythm section, carrying us out toward a forever receding waterline.

Two worthy, if confected, tracks have been elided from Horizons—strange when you consider the collection could have accommodated both. “The Abstract Face Of Beauty,” penned by Hübner, paints a vista of clouds and barren land, every bit the sonic analogue to the album’s cover, and features prime soulful blowing from Pilz. “Sunrise” taps a similarly rubato vein and throws the spotlight on Schoof’s technical prowess. The 14-minute loss isn’t likely to matter to those new to this material, of whom many listeners of Resonance are likely to be. In any event, Schoof himself assembled the included tracks, and one can only imagine his good reason.

Horizons
Original cover

Although he is one diamond in a mine already chock full of them, Manfred Schoof deserves any ECM fan’s close attention. As a composer, he builds a welcoming world. As a player, he turns fantasy inside out and makes it feel possible. Like the solo concerts of Keith Jarrett, if the reader will forgive the otherwise groundless simile, his pieces are distinguished by their ostinatos, which thrum with the invisible energy of ley lines. This is music that looks at itself in the mirror and asks, “Am I the reflection after all?”

Bobo Stenson Trio: Goodbye (ECM 1904)

| Tyran Grillo

Goodbye

Bobo Stenson Trio
Goodbye

Bobo Stenson piano
Anders Jormin double-bass
Paul Motian drums
Recorded April 2004 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James A. Farber
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Bobo Stenson’s trio projects have brought a host of eclectic programs to fruition in ECM’s choicest studios. Like label mate Tomasz Stanko, the Swedish pianist’s repertoire is a balancing act of adventure and return. As with the follow-up, Cantando, the present session draws from classical sources (Henry Purcell’s flavorsome “Music For A While”), protest songs (Vladimir Vyotsky’s “Song About Earth,” here something of a meta-statement), standards (Stephen Sondheim’s “Send In The Clowns” and the title tune by Gordon Jenkins), and Latin American music. All of this and more, including new material by Stenson and bassist Anders Jormin, in addition to some tried and true from drummer Paul Motian. Goodbye is the first recorded meeting of these three greats, who comb the pelt of the cosmos until it glistens.

Whether by stick or by brush, Motian’s touch is meticulously impressionistic, reactive, and aware. His slipperiness is recognizable from the first quiver of the Sondheim classic. He adds so much patina to its well-polished surface, locking rough into smooth like the teeth of a zipper. Those unmistakable brushes continue to beguile in “Alfonsina,” which comes from the pen of Argentine composer Ariel Ramírez. We feel more than hear Motian as he blends into Stenson’s exquisite pianism with all the selflessness of a shadow. Only in the fourth track, “There Comes A Time” (Tony Williams), does he change over to sticks. Hooked on Jormin’s arm, he elicits a certain sweetness, fleeting as mist at sunrise. For his own tunes, “Jack Of Clubs” and “Sudan,” he overturns melodic warmth in spades and dips into resolution as might a painter into crimson. These share in the album’s concluding spate of briefer numbers, along with Stenson’s “Queer Street” and Jormin’s “Triple Play”—both tantalizing.

The bassist enlivens the set with three further tracks, shifting from the stark poetry of “Seli” to the more flexible “Allegretto Rubato” at the flick of a wrist. It is “Rowan,” however, that regards the listener most enigmatically. It lives below the water’s surface, gazing at its own reflection until it can no longer swim. Stenson weeps here with the viscosity of a maple tree. Of that tree, the leaf that is Ornette Coleman’s “Race Face” swings freely, making the jive sound so easy when in truth we can hardly comprehend the paths taken to get here.

Regardless of length, every bit of this moody and often-melancholic set feels complete. This is a jazz of evaporation; not the work of a trio but the feeling of another climate.

Bobo Stenson Trio: Cantando (ECM 2023)

| Tyran Grillo

Cantando

Bobo Stenson Trio
Cantando

Bobo Stenson piano
Anders Jormin double-bass
Jon Fält drums
Recorded December 2007 at Auditorium Radio Svizzera Italiana, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher

After the epic statement that was Serenity, the Bobo Stenson Trio reshuffled not only its personnel (Jon Fält replaces Jon Christensen, by way of Paul Motian, on drums) but also its sources. Cantando takes these changes in stride, as is clear from the swish and sparkle that unwrap “Olivia.” The opener is by Cuban songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, whose left-leaning politics find traction in the haunting backpedaling toward the end, gelling in wordless spirit like a lake in winter. Astor Piazzolla’s “Chiquilín de Bachín” dips again into Latin American material. This is Fält’s moment, as he brings a painter’s awareness of color and nuance to bear on a groovy ride. Yet Jormin is the head and tail of this Ouroborous, adding much with his amplified amethyst sound. Overall, he is an even more defining presence than usual, ever evolving his navigation of Stenson’s winding turns of phrase. As composer, the bassist offers two tunes. “M” is the more swinging of the two, while “Wooden Church” spins a matrix of liturgical and secular impulses, especially in his solo, which scuttles through the walls like a mouse who knows his way blind. Jormin shines further in the loosened fray of Stenson’s night throughout “Pages,” which culls four of seven pieces freely improvised in the studio. Curious and enchanting, they give rare insight into the art at hand.

Cantando rounds out with a handful of tributes. “Don’s Kora Song” gives props to the late Don Cherry, whose far-reaching sense of mood and timing translate well into Stenson’s world. His mechanical yet intuitive precision in the left-hand ostinato reminds us that all music has a heartbeat. The obscure Ornette Coleman tune “A Fixed Goal” betrays its tongue-in-cheek title in a series of moving targets, of which Jormin’s are the blurriest. Nestled snug against a forward-thinking take on the standard “Love, I’ve Found You” is Alban Berg’s “Liebesode.” A sarangi-like intro evokes stretches of dunescape before the piece’s thick description balances the raw and the cooked in delicious proportion. Last is “Song Of Ruth.” Written by the late Czech composer Petr Eben and recorded here just two months after his passing, it follows wherever gravity may lead. It pulses on forested borders, cut from the cloth of the earth by rivers and footpaths. So veracious is it that it might as well be called “Song Of Truth.” The album contains two versions, a variation of which closes the set, most forthcoming in its philosophies and clothed in the iridescence of its will. Brilliant.

One can always count on Stenson to outdo himself, and this time is no different. He consistently pulls the listener in fresh improvisatory directions, all of which blossom as supply as ever in the spacious engineering, courtesy of Stefano Amerio in Lugano. This trio, in every incarnation, is a book unto itself: over time the binding relaxes but remains intact. All of which gives metaphorical strength to “Pages,” smelling still of the glue that holds them together.

(To hear samples of Cantando, click here.)

Bach: Das Wohltemperierte Clavier – Schiff (ECM New Series 2270-73)

| Tyran Grillo

2270-73 X

Johann Sebastian Bach
Das Wohltemperierte Clavier

András Schiff piano
Recorded August 2011, Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano
Engineer: Stephan Schellmann
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-tempered Clavier is more than a magnum opus. It’s an origin story. Practically speaking, it houses a prelude-fugue couplet for each of the 24 major and minor keys, twice over. Dated 1722 and 1742 respectively, Books I and II are the subjects of two earlier ECM New Series recordings by Keith Jarrett, while pianist Till Fellner has lent his shadows to Book I. Jarrett made the bold decision to record Book I on piano and Book II on harpsichord, thereby giving discernible substance to the two decades that separate them. Fellner’s poignant rendition is only half completed, and it remains to be seen whether the rest will reach market. Until then, label devotees have another.

In his marvelous liner notes, Paul Griffiths characterizes the WTC as “one of the central thoroughfares of western music.” He goes on to speak of prelude and fugue as gate and path or, another way, “Things in The Well-Tempered Clavier always come in pairs, but pairs that, unlike butterfly wings, display an essential asymmetry, if an asymmetry that will sound inevitable, even natural.” Doubtless, this asymmetry is inevitable, for it is the pollen that keeps Bach’s fields fragrant. As a renowned veteran of the composer, András Schiff dusts decades of return into these flora. For him the question is not whether to approach them as studio recording or as performance, because for him the two are inseparable. “To me, Bach’s music is not black and white; it’s full of colors,” he asserts. As in the cover art by Jan Jedlička, the music crosses lines in a deepening network of variation.

Schiff concludes his portion of the booklet with a note on pedal use—or, in his case, total lack thereof. The music is all the freer for it, the affectation a potent expressive tool. Like a digital photographer reverting to manual, Schiff’s process gives vision to its subject with meticulous care. Whether or not this creates a “purer” sound is entirely subjective, though one can hardly fault the sincerity of his choice, for indeed the pedal is often fantasy’s servant. In its place is a tasteful reverb, lacquered at Lugano’s Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera under the watch of engineer Stephan Schellmann.

Eschewment of pedal shortens the distance between attack and delay, making it more akin to human speech. Already, in the C major Prelude of Book I, we feel a linguistic touch speaking through those famous arpeggios as Schiff makes of the piano a syllabic organ, no mere percussive machine. His ability to distinguish palatal colors becomes further apparent in the A-flat major Prelude. Schiff’s hands-only approach lends pop and shine to the faster movements, and to the slower adds emotional weight. It also makes the rhythmic complexities glow. Whether the playful grinds of the C minor and C-sharp minor Fugues or the balance of taste and virtuosity of the D major Prelude, the relationship between medium and message becomes, again, inevitable the more one listens.

Perhaps most illuminating in this regard is the equal partnership of the left and right hands. Listen, for instance, to Schiff’s handling of the C-sharp minor Fugue ground, which folds words into sentences and sentences into stories, or the coalescence achieved in his E minor Prelude. From epic carriage to dulcet tickling, such nuances sweep the landscape free of its weeds. Other moments, like the F-sharp major Prelude, are the espresso in a latte universe. Also noteworthy are the extended trills, which Schiff varies to suit the mood at hand. Twirling like maple propellers at one moment (G minor Prelude) and methodically slow the next (F-sharp minor Fugue), they hold us captive at any speed.

Brilliant execution of the C major Prelude and C-sharp minor Fugue stand out in Book II, sounding at least like three hands. The sheer volume of intimacy in the D-sharp minor Prelude draws a comparable spiral of creative focus, and the famous F minor Prelude enchants, ghostly but tangible. The F-sharp major Prelude is yet another notable. This Schiff manages beautifully, shifting with perfect pacing between the dotted eighth-sixteenth couplets and moving into strings of sixteenths in this 3/4 piece. Likewise, his downward chromatic steps in the A minor Prelude are intuitively realized. The final Prelude and Fugue in B minor scintillate with new beginnings and good tidings. Thus, Schiff has locked us into Bach’s prism (especially in the E minor Prelude of Book II) with the precision of a Spirograph wheel and has held us there until the design can no longer repeat itself.

Happiness theorists believe that we become habituated to surpluses of pleasure or positive stimulation, to the point where even the most meaningful activities lose the value they once held. Bach’s WTC noshes on time with the same measured reflection that the iconic shepherd chews on his wheat stalk. In that idle motion is a world of temperament whose secrets will never be fully disclosed. Listening to this music today, it is easy to imagine how different our world is from the time in which it was written. The beauty of Schiff’s performance and Bach’s insightful writing is that, despite the potential infinitude of performances the score invites, at its heart is a survival instinct that will never falter so long as life walks this earth.

(To hear samples of this album, click here.)

Selected Signs, I – An ECM Anthology (ECM 1650)

| Tyran Grillo

Selected Signs Ia

Selected Signs, I – An ECM Anthology

The essential, as the cover of ECM’s first true compilation so quietly proclaims, may no longer be visible, but it sure is audible. Unlike the classical New Series Anthology, which took an unexpected dip into ECM proper, here the label’s formative mining of (mostly) European jazz idioms (and idiom-breakers) fills in the clothing it was born to wear. Although one might expect a collection from a catalogue already so vast to span its then-28-year history, amazingly all of its tracks come from albums released in 1997, a critical year for all involved.

The disproportionate amount of material from Tomasz Stanko indicates his importance to the label (the Polish trumpeter has left one of the deepest genetic impacts on ECM’s evolution), if not also the label’s importance to him, for producer Manfred Eicher has extended such loving welcome to his formidable talent. It sparks no wonder, then, that the brooding, sweeping gestures of “Svantetic” (from Litania) should heave their weight from the start. Despite being played by a septet, the feel of it is characteristically hermetic. Like an eyelid weighted with sleep, “Morning Heavy Song” (from his quartet’s Leosia) plunges us into a thick pianistic fog. Another private sketch in charcoal, it places notes where footprints might otherwise have been and lifts us from the shadowy lullaby of “Sleep Safe And Warm” (also from Litania) like the final corner of a jigsaw puzzle destined to be incomplete.

Significantly or not, many of the anthology selections come from early on in their respective albums. As such, they breathe with storytelling power, and nowhere more so than in the bandoneón master Dino Saluzzi’s touching “Gorrión” (from his trio effort Cité de la Musique). This biological excursion was written for Jean-Luc Godard, who has in the past drawn from Saluzzi, among other ECM artists, for his intuitive soundtracks. It is not only air that courses through Saluzzi’s bellows, but also soil, family, and time. Guitarist Ralph Towner, another artist of inward renown, gives the only other solo performance in “Tale Of Saverio” (ANA). It is also cinematic, for like a Bergman film it clicks along at a ghostly pace and finds in its own reflection the arrival of memory, naked and fractured.

Ukraine-born pianist Misha Alperin’s “Morning” (North Story) cages a chamber jazz aesthetic, though its textures become rather dense as the other instruments join him, applied like foundation to give those splashes of color a surface on which to ruminate. In the humid atmosphere he creates, stillness becomes a fairytale. “Hyperborean / Patch Of Light” (Hyperborean) is a classic from Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen’s archive, one of ECM’s strongest. For all its classical associations and wandering lines, it puts a truth to heart. Like a bird with eyes closed, Andersen’s bass knows where it’s going long before wind touches feather. Percussionist and longtime Jan Garbarek collaborator Marilyn Mazur gets a brief nod in “Creature Talk” (Small Labyrinths), a twittering flyby of rainforest that lands us at the feet of the totem carved in “Desolation Sound” (Canto), a deep introduction to American tenorist Charles Lloyd’s moving art. His twilight is strong, his breath dancing from satellite to satellite. “Siegfried And Roy,” by the Michael Cain Trio (from the overlooked Circa), is another fleeting piece of chamber jazz. It is a slow pounce, a leaning of the head, a nocturne that never makes its way into recall.

Next are the keening wonders of the Joe Maneri Quartet in a haunting take on “Motherless Child” (In Full Cry), which turns the familiar spiritual into a DNA helix of healed bones. An illness surrounds these masters, for which Maneri’s reed is the cure. Kenny Wheeler’s drum-less Angel Song project gets due attention with “Past Present.” Threaded by the delicate metronome of bass and strung by hand through guitar, its memorable theme speaks in a language only it can, its breath a sunset turned into wine and poured down the throat of a dream. Jack DeJohnette’s vital contributions take shape in “Free Above Sea” (Oneness). This richly detailed piece showcases the drummer’s melodic brilliance, enhanced here by piano and icy guitar. The anthology concludes (or does it begin?) with the title track from Nothing Ever Was, Anyway, an all-Annette Peacock program featuring pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Gary Peacock, and late drummer Paul Motian. This is jazz flung into a wormhole and re-spun as it emerges, a body so unaware of itself that it soars.

Selected Signs creates its own sound story, the story of a label and its heartbeat, of a producer and his vision—a vision that sees as it hears. This being but a cross-section of a single year in ECM’s 40+ history, imagine what the others hold in store…

<< Michael Mantler: The School Of Understanding (ECM 1648/49)
>> Roscoe Mitchell: Nine To Get Ready (ECM 1651)

András Schiff: Schubert C-major Fantasies (ECM New Series 1699)

| Tyran Grillo

Schubert Fantasien

András Schiff
Franz Schubert C-major Fantasies

András Schiff piano
Yuuko Shiokawa violin
Recorded December 1998, Schloss Mondsee
Engineer: Stephan Schellmann
Produced by Manfred Eicher

It is tempting to say that the music of Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was ahead of its time. In the words of pianist András Schiff, “Schubert has such modernity—perhaps his time has only arrived now.” When encountering the 1822 “Wanderer” Fantasy for the first time, the characterization would seem to fit like a tailored suit. And yet, if we track its subsequent influence on composers as diverse as Liszt and Ligeti, it becomes clear that he was a composer of his moment, and it is this moment to which so many listeners have returned in their own wanderings. It might, then, be more accurate to say, “Modernity has such Schubert.”

In the first half of this recital disc for ECM, Schiff flows through the piece’s technical challenges like a river through a forest. As remarkable as this is, more intriguing are the ways in which he navigates its emotional mazes, for as a Schubert interpreter Schiff prefers poetry to drama. He gives requisite oomph to the magisterial introduction and from it elicits rounded gestures implying acres of pasture at a single touch of key. Yet his most commanding moments are the gentlest. Almost as still as mirrors, they reflect the leaf-patterned light that seeks them. Pulling away the vines, Schiff smells the moss, fecund with mystery. Knowledge of Schubert’s all-too-brief life inflects these passages darkly. From the spectral to the colloquial, the “Wanderer” spans the gamut of responses to landscape, though the Beethovenian desperation in the final fugue is undermined by an intermittent restraint that may sit oddly with fans of benchmark recordings like Richter’s or Pollini’s. Still, a resplendent sign-off gives the piece a total shape that is Schiff’s own.

His wife, violinist Yuuko Shiokawa, joins her partner for Schubert’s Fantasy D934, also in C major. Published posthumously in 1850, its proper score rested dormant beneath the recital stage until the 1930s. Emerging in a ghostly whisper, Shiokawa draws a spider’s thread through the piano’s microscopic tides. This is the dream to the former fantasy’s waking, made manifest through the strains of an inviting dance. Shiokawa brings appropriate balance of airiness and strident romanticism to what is arguably some of Schubert’s most beautiful writing. She partners well with the piano as a parallel voice—neither competing nor unified. Shiokawa also handles the technicalities with grace, particularly during a delightful passage that floats pizzicato in cascading undulations from Schiff’s fingers. Another flowery conclusion, if more succinct than the last, again closes the circle with confidence.

The recording here is noticeably soft in texture, heavy in the lower register. The combination sucks a bit of wind from Schubert’s sails in portions, especially in the finale of the “Wanderer.” Both Fantasies remain purest in their introductions and in their quieter turns. Such issues aside, with these two pieces Schubert shows that perhaps all music is fantasy.

<< Dave Holland Quintet: Prime Directive (ECM 1698)
>> Jan Garbarek/The Hilliard Ensemble: Mnemosyne (ECM 1700/01 NS)

Dave Holland Quintet: Prime Directive (ECM 1698)

| Tyran Grillo

Prime Directive

Dave Holland Quintet
Prime Directive

Dave Holland double-bass
Robin Eubanks trombone
Chris Potter soprano, alto and tenor saxophones
Steve Nelson vibraphone, marimba
Billy Kilson drums
Recorded December 10-12, 1998 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James Farber
Produced by Dave Holland

Chris Potter replaces Steve Wilson as reedman in this follow-up to the Dave Holland Quintet’s Grammy-nominated Points of View. The band’s tremendous communication and obvious joy embolden a strong set of nine tracks, five of which come from Holland’s pen, starting with the title. The addictive rhythms are quintessential Holland and usher us into a sound-world that one hardly wants to leave. In this respect, drummer Billy Kilson rules the roost from start to finish. Working seamlessly with Holland as Potter and trombonist Robin Eubanks cast nets over Steve Nelson’s liquid crystal vibes, he engenders a pollinated groove without fail. Kilson further inspires his band mates to step up their rhythmic game, as in “Jugglers Parade,” which boasts a fine example of Holland’s ability to embolden even the most upbeat solos through an inborn lyrical power (not to mention some lovely sopranism from Potter on the recharge), and “Down Time,” the closing trio number with Eubanks in the lead. Potter takes up Kilson’s call most creatively in “Looking Up,” as does Nelson in an epic solo. The smoky rejoinder from Eubanks morphs into a percolating extravaganza and recedes for a quiet yet robust solo from Holland. The leader-bassist seems to deliver a caravan track in every session, and this time around “Make Believe” is it. A sandy and romantic excursion, it spreads the night sky like paper, across which Potter inscribes a love letter to the art of improvisation.

Holland’s coconspirators offer a tune each. Eubanks steals the show with his fireside dance, “A Searching Spirit,” pulling out a bubbling yet punchy solo, while Nelson gallivants through Kilson’s inescapable groove. The alto touches on the downswing foreshadow Potter’s equally upbeat “High Wire.” Nelson sweeps back with his forlorn “Candlelight Vigil,” which feels like an epilogue, a coda, an honest sigh. Kilson bows out here, while Holland picks up his bow for some fluid talk. The drummer returns on his “Wonders Never Cease,” which from a soulful intro by way of Holland looses a stream of inspired beats.

Prime Directive is a listener’s gift, wrapped and tied with a bow, and a viable contender for Holland’s finest ECM session.

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Kenny Wheeler: A Long Time Ago (ECM 1691)

| Tyran Grillo

A Long Time Ago

Kenny Wheeler
A Long Time Ago

Kenny Wheeler flugelhorn
John Taylor piano
John Parricelli guitar
Derek Watkins trumpet
John Barclay trumpet
Henry Lowther trumpet
Ian Hamer trumpet
Pete Beachill trombone
Richard Edwards trombone
Mark Nightingale trombone
Sarah Williams bass trombone
David Stewart bass trombone
Tony Faulkner conductor
Recorded September 1997 and January 1998 at Gateway Studio, Kingston
Engineer: Steve Lowe
Produced by Evan Parker

A Long Time Ago takes another dip into the oceans explored on trumpeter-composer Kenny Wheeler’s Music For Large & Small Ensembles. Yet where that disc moved diaristically from one paragraph to another in an organic stream of consciousness, here the slant is toward Wheeler the essayist, toward his understanding of jazz as a space of melancholy theses.

At the album’s core is pianist John Taylor (whose years of experience with Wheeler in their Azimuth outfit with Norma Winstone bear clear fruit), guitarist John Parricelli (an eclectic talent whose dream of playing with Wheeler was at last realized with this recording), Derek Watkins (one of this project’s prime instigators), and Wheeler himself, who opts exclusively for flugelhorn. Aside from Taylor, there is no percussionist on the roster; only a sizable band of trumpets, trombones, and bass trombones. The resulting sound is multifarious, deep, and quintessentially Wheelerian.

Wheeler is a reassuring protagonist, and as he steps into the verdant morning fields of the album’s eponymous suite, painterly and brimming with feeling, he weaves a nostalgic tapestry of diamonds and circles. Between the lush arrangement and the synergistic nexus maintained by Taylor and Parricelli, the tone is generally somber and wood-grained. This does not, however, keep Wheeler from coloring outside the lines as the mood strikes him. These bright, squealing breaches are all the more vivid for their intermittence. “One Plus Three,” of which a second version ends the set on its most somber note, boasts further abstract moments in a distinct, naked voice.

If the album as a whole feels elegiac, then this feeling is brought home tenfold in “Ballad for a Dead Child,” a dirge which after a funereal intro opens into expansive duetting from Wheeler and Taylor. As the horns at large blend back in, they combine the here with the hereafter. While on a lonely train ride through twilit landscape in “Eight Plus Three,” the lively dream of “Alice My Dear” cracks its first smile. It is a smile of appreciation that sends positive energy into “Going for Baroque.” The latter has the quality of a royal fanfare and reveals the Renaissance sources that have long inspired Wheeler’s pen. It is also a vaulting segue into the “Gnu Suite,” which finds material from Wheeler’s ECM debut, Gnu High, dramatically re-imagined.

Wheeler is the photographer who, in a digital age, still prefers to step into a dark room, close the door, and let his music develop. His images embrace imperfections as a means of balancing all that is in focus. And so, while this is an album for brass lovers at heart and deserves a spot on any ECM collector’s shelf right next to the Surman/Warren Brass Project, it is also a prime example of how sound can transcend its means and become its own story.

<< Gudmundson/Möller/Willemark: Frifot (ECM 1690)
>> Eleni Karaindrou: Eternity and a Day (ECM 1692 NS)