ECM Releases

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)

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)

Eberhard Weber: Colours (ECM 2133-35)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 2133-35

Eberhard Weber
Colours

Eberhard Weber bass
Charlie Mariano soprano saxophone, shenai, nagaswaram, flutes
Rainer Brüninghaus keyboards, piano, synthesizer
Jon Christensen drums
John Marshall drums, percussion

“I would not be you, El-ahrairah. For Frith has given the fox and the weasel cunning hearts and sharp teeth, and to the cat has given silent feet and eyes that see in the dark, and they are gone awry from Frith’s place to kill and devour all that belongs to El-ahrairah.”
–Richard Adams, Watership Down

For six years, Eberhard Weber’s Colours enthralled the European tour circuit. A unique entry into the growing number of fusion outfits of the seventies, Weber charted a distinctly introspective path into jazz’s most unanswerable questions. The ensemble’s inimitable blend of improvisational and chamber music aesthetics was a perfect fit for ECM, not so much filling a gap as defining one. By the time he had recorded for the label, Weber had already honed a most distinctive skill, brought to its worthiest fruition on his custom electrobass, and was even present in Wolfgang Dauner’s much-neglected Output. Without a doubt, Colours created some of the label’s most mellifluous music. The sound is unmistakable, coiling like a snake around some of the most gorgeous atmospheres to grace your ears.

ECM 1066

Yellow Fields (ECM 1066)

Recorded September, 1975 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

With “Touch” we are immediately privy to a groove-oriented game between piano and bass. The lush, open sound is heightened by the presence of synth strings, prefiguring Weber’s later orchestral collaborations. Charlie Mariano’s soprano floats with positive energy and unbounded enthusiasm as the strings morph into trembling sirens. Jon Christensen adds backbone to otherwise invertebrate music. Weber is subdued in this first track, leaving Mariano to take the lead with a soulful stride toward a quick fadeout, leaving us wanting more of what could have been.

“Sand-Glass” begins with water droplets and the occasional artfully placed rim shot. High notes on bass provide a constellatory framework. Within these borders, seemingly drawn but only imagined, Mariano solos like a comet, his sentiment flaring against a limpid night. Mariano flaps his wings around the fuselage of Weber’s bass line before being rocked to sleep in an electric piano cradle. Inspirations grow more pronounced as Mariano picks up the shenai, a quadruple-reed North Indian oboe that tunnels into the brain like a shawm. We ride this wave until the drums pick us up and drop us back into a shattered world of aftershocks and quieting energy.

The title track is an auditory hermit. With the theme quickly dispensed with, improvisation turns joyful fancy into gorgeous abandon. All the while, discipline reigns as abstractions build into a more melodic whole in which the sound and the message are one and the same. Weber takes a more supportive tack, allowing Brüninghaus a cosmic solo on electric piano. Statements conveyed and time regained, the band wraps up with a fleeting thematic revival amid an interlacing of rhythms and supportive flourishes.

Lastly, we merge onto the “Left Lane,” which opens with a pensive bass, soon joined by electric piano. Christensen defibrillates, turning this slow drive into a cruise. The piano sings in its higher regions before trickling down like rain on a window. Weber returns to spark a new groove, moving from elegiac to jazzy in a flash. A seemingly tame sax solo quickly turns dramatic, opening our hearts to a visceral farewell.

<< Keith Jarrett: The Köln Concert (ECM 1064/65)
>> Terje Rypdal: Odyssey (ECM 1067/68)

… . …

ECM 1107

Silent Feet (ECM 1107)

Recorded November 1977 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

“Seriously Deep” throws a light blanket of tender drones and electric piano, quilted with gorgeous solos on soprano sax and bass. Steady rhythms (hereon provided by ex-Soft Machine drummer John Marshall) turn something otherwise mournful into life-affirming joy. The title is not a pretentious statement of the music’s emotional cache, but rather a description of its physical path as it digs toward the center of the earth. The second, and title, track of the album’s modest three is an ironic one, requiring active hands to evoke silent feet. The helix that is Weber and Brüninghaus spirals in place as cymbals connect like base pairs within, thus leading to one of the latter’s most captivating pianistic passages. It is the kind of balanced exuberance that characterizes Pat Metheny at his most potent stretches of imagination. Stellar breath control from Mariano plays beautifully off Weber’s every move, making for one of the finest cuts in the collection. We end nocturnally, watching with “Eyes That Can See In The Dark.” A smattering of percussion sets off a wooden flute in a floating auditory reverie. While one might think that an electric bass would upset this delicate atmosphere, Weber is one of the few who can pull it off with such fluid precision. From this pool arises a specter of winds, blown like gusts of air from pursed lips across outstretched hands. Again, Mariano turns out some incredible soloing to finish.

Those who, like me, grew up reading Watership Down will doubly appreciate the occasional references Weber draws from the classic novel. “Silent Feet” and “Eyes That Can See In The Dark” both refer to a central creation myth among the story’s protagonists, a herd of rabbits fleeing in exodus from the warren they once called home. Storytelling becomes a central diversion in these hard times, and the origins narrative is a favorite: At a council of the animals, Frith the creator and sun god gives each its own ability to forever pursue the wily and celeritous rabbit. To the cat, he gives Weber’s cited traits, all the better to seek out its foe under cover of night. Respectfully, Weber takes a more romantic view of the hunt and allows us into the animal mind without malice.

<< Art Lande and Rubisa Patrol: Desert Marauders (ECM 1106)
>> Paul Motian Trio: Dance (ECM 1108)

… . …

ECM 1186

Little Movements (ECM 1186)

Recorded July 1980 at Studio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

The vast drone of “The Last Stage Of A Long Journey” cuts a thick line below the Steve Kuhn-esque intro. Like the silent monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it mystifies as it enlightens. Saxophonic clusters punctuate a deep recurring thrum. Brüninghaus introduces a plaintive ostinato behind Weber’s crisp solo over brushed drums. Every gesture therein lifts us into cloudier airspace. “Bali” gives us more drone, until Marshall and Weber lock us into a solid trek to outlying territories. Like a train through the mountains that suddenly part to reveal a lively village, it shows passengers an idyllic vision of life on the margins. The piano keeps us moving forward, however, so that we only get a glimpse. Weber provides the coal, while Mariano lights a fire to feed it. A beautiful arpeggiator opens the door on a transcendent detour before bringing us back on track. The energy and motivic clarity remind one instantly of Steve Reich’s Tehillim. Next, Colours weaves “A Dark Spell” over us. Over a distant cascade of piano, bass and sax congregate in thematic clusters. Mariano outdoes himself, performing back flips in the sky as our speed increases in the last stretch. Engaging harmonies between bass and sax offer an incredible display of dynamic control that recedes like a classical riff. The title track begins with a repeated motif on piano as random sounds—accordion, gongs, and breaking glass—populate the background. From this, we get a thematic highlighting by Mariano against Weber’s delightful counterpart. The smooth and easy ending sweeps up any remaining debris with every repetition. “‘No Trees?’ He Said” is a straightforward track that appears smooth from every angle. From its tight rhythm to its reed doublings, this is simply stunning music. There is nothing little about these movements.

Though palpable in every amplified note, Weber’s legacy is about more than just assembling a handful of incredibly talented beads and threading them with smooth production. “Telepathic” is hardly the word to describe the sound of Colours, but it steers us in the right direction. The music in this set remains untouched, a sign of its far-reaching clarity of purpose. It is chaos theory epitomized in sound: every note goes where it must, never to be repeated. Weber’s music not only soars, it transcends the atmosphere. I like to think that, somewhere, an extra-terrestrial is glowing with delight at these sounds, pulsing through space-time with the energy of all creation.

<< Miroslav Vitous Group: s/t (ECM 1185)
>> Rainer Brüninghaus: Freigeweht (ECM 1187)

Egberto Gismonti: Dança Das Cabeças (ECM 1089)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1089

Egberto Gismonti
Dança Das Cabeças

Egberto Gismonti 8-string guitar, piano, wood flutes, voice
Nana Vasconcelos percussion, berimbau, corpo, voice
Recorded November 1976 at Talent Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Egberto Gismonti’s first ECM appearance is also his most understated. Dança das Cabeças (Dance of the Heads) was to be a solo album, due to the fact that the Brazilian government had inflated travel expenses for he and his band to the questionable figure of 7000 dollars a head. Gismonti was the only among them able to make the journey, but as fate would have it, he met Nana Vasconcelos quite by accident while in Norway to prepare for this recording. According to Alvaro Neder, when Vasconcelos asked him to describe the concept behind this project, Gismonti told him it was “the history of two boys wandering through a dense, humid forest, full of insects and animals, keeping a 180-feet distance from each other.” It was a history the two musicians shared without articulation, and Vasconcelos immediately agreed to join, thereby bringing another visionary into the label’s fold.

“It sounds just like a rain forest!” Perhaps you have heard this assessment being made in reference to many a New-Age album, sporting lush trees on its cover and layered within with preprogrammed synthesizers and wooden flutes. Dança, by contrast, is as far as one can get from the contrived exotica that haunt our commercial soundscapes. We are fully situated in the acoustic benefits of live musicianship, captured in all their immediacy in ECM’s standard-setting clarity. And so, while the birdlike sounds of Part I do indeed evoke a forest practically dripping with fecundity, it is populated with more than a few brightly colored animals. Like Marion Brown’s Afternoon Of A Georgia Faun, its sound is as deliberate as it is organic. From these canopied beginnings, we get some jangly strums from Gismonti’s guitar, slaloming between frenzied hand drums. Rhythms and melodies build to infectious heights, diving into our blood with every fluted moment. The musicians raise their cries, from which Gismonti spins a free-flowing grace, as if to trace lines of varying distance in a vast topographic map. Vasconcelos returns in all his fullness with drums, maracas, and shakers, while Gismonti’s fingers move on in their quiet persistence. Changes in syncopation and a few helpings of dissonant harmonies enact a skeleton dance of sorts, soaring resolutely into the music’s ritual heart. Gismonti’s classical training shines through in Part II, for which he puts his fingers to keys in a spacious and revelatory stroll through Keith Jarrett territory. From this heartwarming nostalgia, built in arcs with only the occasional angles, Gismonti morphs into a bellowed vocalise and storm of handclaps. He returns to the guitar before closing with another pianistic statement in improvised space.

This remains the Brazilian multi-instrumentalist’s most direct effort. In it, we find him without masks. It is the kind of music that makes one glad to be alive, a breath of clarity in polluted air. Essential for anyone who appreciates what music can bring to the heart, mind, and body.

<< Edward Vesala: Satu (ECM 1088)
>> Keith Jarrett: Staircase (ECM 1090/91)

Ralph Towner/Gary Burton: Matchbook (ECM 1056)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1056

Ralph Towner
Gary Burton
Matchbook

Ralph Towner 12-string and classical guitars
Gary Burton vibraharp
Recorded July 26/27, 1974 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

A matchbook doesn’t typically provide a surface for lasting statements. On its flap, one scrawls a phone number, an address, or any other piece of information as ephemeral as the flames for which it is mass-produced. Such is not the case with guitarist Ralph Towner and vibraphonist Gary Burton. Instead, we get indelible marks of grace and humility, each a brighter spark at the wick of our attention.

Towner originals form the bulk of this project, of which the opening “Drifting Petals” is a quintessentially evocative example. Between his 12-string and Burton’s plaintive returns, we get an emotive handful of light poured directly into our ears. This combination recurs in an intimately redacted version of “Icarus,” which paves new avenues of understanding through one of Towner’s most popular compositions. Burton’s touch adds a metallic fervor that contrasts well with the softer piano version on the previous year’s seminal Diary. Twelve strings of bliss continue in “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.” In this delicate, dark arrangement, Mingus’s classic tune wilts into a devastating ending.

The album’s remainder gives us Towner in a more classical mode, thereby halving the number of strings at his disposal, but with no loss of distance. “Some Other Time” builds an enchanting synchronicity, throughout which both instruments connect and drift apart like memories and expectations. Burton’s plush chords give Towner’s fingers plenty of forgiving terrain. The two switch roles, as they often do, for their respective solos. “Song For A Friend” is a bleaker piece wrapped around a gentle persuasion. As an affirmation of beauty, it is sometimes painful, shaded by the same colors with which all relationships are rendered. Towner draws the album’s most endearing solo here across an ideal tidal accompaniment. A notable highlight is Towner’s buzzed introduction of the title track, achieved by weaving a matchbook into the strings of his guitar. This sets off a flurry of whimsical activity and attentive soloing, meshing in a tightly knit cloth that leaves no dangling thread.

Three instrumental angles converge in the triangular “Aurora”: classical and 12-string guitars occupy the left and right channels, while vibes bond them with living energy and song. In addition, Towner and Burton are each given their own moments in two brief, but beautiful, tracks. “Brotherhood” is a haunting piece by Burton alone, its musical nether regions fluttering in anticipation of the higher notes dropping into its dark pool, while “1×6” is a classical guitar solo that ends before it begins.

The sound of this album is like no other and unfolds itself with the delicacy of a morning glory, yet with melodies as indestructible as the sunlight that sustains them. Its many colors are provided not only through finely wrought melodies, but also through a wealth of rhythmic variations throughout. If you like either of these artists apart, then you can’t go wrong with them together.

<< Gary Burton/Steve Swallow: Hotel Hello (ECM 1055)
>> Bill Connors: Theme To The Gaurdian (ECM 1057)

Alfred Harth: This Earth! (ECM 1264)

| Tyran Grillo

Alfred Harth
This Earth!

Alfred Harth tenor, alto and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet
Paul Bley piano
Trilok Gurtu percussion
Maggie Nicols voice
Barre Phillips bass
Recorded May 1983, Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

This Earth! represents Alfred Harth’s second ECM appearance, supporting a stellar cast of musicians that includes Barre Phillips on bass, Paul Bley at the keys, Trilok Gurtu on percussion, and the inimitable Maggie Nicols doing what she loves. The words are by Vicky Scrivener, which could easily be a pen name for Nicols herself—such is the immediacy with which the words seem to pour from her lungs.

“Female Is The Sun” is the album’s anthem. Structured around a counterpoint of bass clarinet and pianistic asides, its skeleton comes to life through Nicols’s animations. Each verse hoists us deeper into the sky, until we begin to feel the heat of that “old gold woman” who oversees our every waking moment:

The earth’s hot eye reels
fenced
and groans before
vestal temperament

The piano and bass in “Relation To Light, Colour and Feeling” are like two adjacent houses. Between them, a sagging clothesline, from which wordless songs, doubled by sax, hang in the breeze of a balmy afternoon. Words await us at the end, each a folded cloth, a swaying branch, a chirping bird.

Luxurious mezzotints and shades
glowing wash of tones

A percussive introduction opens us to the fabulous spoken word performance of “Studying Walk, A Landscape.” Nicols carries us along with her unpretentious tugs, inscribing the scenery with tightened, almost saxophonic squeals. There is an urban whimsy to be found here, refreshing but also tinged by world-weary bitterness. Phillips also has a lovely solo in this whimsical track with heft and shape.

A wish, relief from a circle

In “Body & Mentation,” piano and bowed bass engage Harth’s tenor with bright energy. Gurtu spreads his palms wide through these aural veins, Harth tracing with a palmist’s care. Their interplay vacillates: a few steps from Gurtu, a few expulsions from Harth. Each move forward italicizes the piece’s sentence structure, closing on an elegiac statement from Bley.

Love’s tug –
our barge;
sweet clamorous tidings
on the unique
journey backwards
to progression.

“Energy: Blood/Air” reveals the album’s most porous textures. Over a tightly knit ostinato, Harth breathes life into Nicols, who skims a poem’s surface before slipping into protracted improvisation. Bley floats a light solo over our heads, gathered up amid a handful of bass.

Today she sits
in the angled skies…
lowering lids
at the blushing
earth.

The “Three Acts Of Recognition” that follow slip a contemplative card into this highly charged deck as Harth’s tender yet robust tenor ladles sound into our silence. Some well-chosen reverb lends a throated quality his song. Overtones mingle as piano chords lay down new ground for every self-aware step. A pause. Bley reaches into his instrument, plucking and strumming strings directly, while Harth spins molecules in the air. Another pause. We return to the keyboard, flowing through to the end.

Between the clean
and tender sheets
we’ll hear us out.

“Come Oekotopia” crackles in rain sticks and cymbals, drawing bass from the soil. Harth improvises over Phillips’s nimble strumming. His long-held note midway through is one of the album’s highlights. Percussive bells diffuse this energy. Nicols makes a phonemic cameo at the end.

The mind streams
to pulse
relinquishing

Her subsequent recitative in “Waves Of Being” offsets a gorgeous solo from Bley, who cannot help but raise his own voice in the flare of the moment. Phillips’s bass is bright and bleeds into Gurtu’s string of metal (gongs), wood (sticks), and exoskeletons (shells). Harth’s bass clarinet bubbles with finality, fading into a sustained pluck of piano strings.

Accapella
flourishing
descants…
Acoustically
tonic.

“Transformate, Transcend Tones and Images” shows Nicols in fine melodic form. As the album’s last image, seems to thrive at its center. Nicols adlibs the remainder, as if to dissolve these impressions just enough so that no one can claim them. “Woman in a violet tail-coat,” she sings, “blows her soul-blue sax on south bank.” But we never hear that sax. Instead, we get a string of unrecorded words:

…translate…
…transcend…
…transform…

leading us into the unknown discoveries of the journey ahead.

Harth is an attentive player who writes without erasing, sings without opening his mouth, exhales without hypocrisy. His notes are often shared on This Earth!, but he is never the mimic. Among this session’s band mates, Gurtu proves to be a particularly interesting choice. His cymbal-focused work adds the illusion of a full kit without the overbearing weight thereof. Bley and Phillips, on the other hand, are unmistakably present. Yet Nicols’s voice is the real poetry of the album. She transcends the words she sings even as she inhabits them, bringing genuine physicality to their contours.

Another out-of-print gem, its elusiveness makes it all the more visceral an experience once it finds its way to your turntable.

<< Terje Rypdal/David Darling: Eos (ECM 1263)
>> The George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band: ’83 Theatre (ECM 1265)

Azimuth (ECM 1546-48)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1546_48

Azimuth

John Taylor piano, organ, synthesizer
Norma Winstone voice
Kenny Wheeler trumpet, fluegelhorn
Ralph Towner 12-string and classical guitars

Azimuth:
1. The arc of the horizon measured clockwise from the south point, in astronomy, or from the north point, in navigation, to the point where a vertical circle through a given heavenly body intersects the horizon.
2. A group made up of vocalist Norma Winstone, husband John Taylor on keyboards, and trumpeter/fluegelhornist Kenny Wheeler whose music, measured from any point, draws an arc through countless heavenly bodies before intersecting with the enchanted listener.

Azimuth was (and remains) emblematic of the ECM label, marking its timelines from 1977 to 2000 with a handful of indelible punctuations. The group’s characteristically expansive sound was overshadowed only by its utter commitment to the melodic line and the trustworthiness of its expression. In the three albums collected for this timely rerelease, the journeys upon which we are taken are the same as those taken by the musicians themselves. Such immediate correspondence is a rare achievement in any vertical circle, and is to be cherished for its productive honesty.

ECM 1099

Azimuth (ECM 1099)

Recorded March 1977 at Talent Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

The group that would become Azimuth began its journey on this self-titled album. “Siren’s Song” rests on the forgiving laurels of a repeated motif, gilded by a horn-flanked voice amid pianistic accents. Like a Steve Reich riff dropped in a pool of jazz, it treats the pulse as the animating force of its creation. Wheeler broadens Winstone’s palette in the melodic relays of “O.” The title track is buoyed by a stunningly gorgeous arpeggiator, over which Winstone sets to flight a pair of overdubbed birds. Once they have flown away, Wheeler draws between their pinpointed forms a sinuous trajectory, along which one is able to chart the album’s path with even more fluid precision. The synthetic backdrop builds in scope, turning what might otherwise be a repetitive New Age loop into an elegiac improvisational exercise. The plaintive piano introduction of “The Tunnel” extends this supportive electricity, into which Winstone begins to sow her potent words. Semantics trail off into further meanderings, reminiscent of the previous track, before the backdrop morphs into a stunning change of key. This makes “Greek Triangle,” a curious piece for brass, all the more whimsical for its appearance. Though outwardly incongruous, it breathes with the same focused spirit that animates the whole, thereby elevating it beyond the status of fanciful diversion. It also serves to refresh our palette for the lyricism of “Jacob,” in which Winstone’s braids and Wheeler’s fluid accents close an altogether fascinating mosaic of atmospheres.

<< Julian Priester and Marine Intrusion: Polarization (ECM 1098)
>> Keith Jarrett: Sun Bear Concerts (ECM 1100)

… . …

ECM 1130

The Touchstone (ECM 1130)

Recorded June, 1978 at Talent Studio
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Azimuth’s second ECM effort is also the group’s most enigmatic. The organ that underlies “Eulogy” gives just enough air for Wheeler to glide, and injects all that follows with deep, warm breath. The trio writes a more intimate letter in “Silver,” answered in the unsteady penmanship of “Mayday,” over which our soloists take great care to dot every i and cross every t. The distant muted trumpets of “Jero” mesh with Winstone’s ambulatory menageries. Taylor draws a fluid line through their incantations, ignoring the periphery all the way to the end of “Prelude,” a track so lovely that it makes one want to listen to the album backwards. This is an elusive set, to be sure, filled with quiet, seething power, but also one that builds its nests comfortably over our heads. It can only fly, because it knows no other way to travel.

<< Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians (ECM 1129 NS)
>> Pat Metheny: New Chautauqua (ECM 1131)

… . …

ECM 1163

Départ (ECM 1163)

Recorded December 1979 at Talent Studios, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

For its third outing, Azimuth welcomed the strings of guitarist Ralph Towner. “The Longest Day” opens in Solstice territory, setting out through a drizzle of piano and 12-string. Winstone’s overdubs visualize gossamer veils of more distant storms, while Wheeler’s soulful trumpet shines like the sun beyond them. Winstone takes her voice to unexpected heights, pulling a banner of time across the sky into the contemplative piano introduction of “Autumn.” There is no falling. Rather, we get the stillness of those leaves before they die, hanging on with their last vestments of color as the winds arrive to shake them from their boughs. Winstone hangs words in the air amid Towner’s almost pianistic fingerings and Wheeler’s staccato cries. “Arrivée” is just that, but is one of many destinations in this sojourn. Incising solos leave their wounds, closed at last by the plasma of Winstone’s mellifluous protractions. This is followed by a quartet of so-called “Touching Points,” which further extrapolate vocal information from instrumental sources, and vice versa. Wordless fibers are at once spun and frayed in passages of intense physicality. Towner is put to improvisatory task, adding tentative yet appropriate ornaments of his own. The organ drone of the title track respires beneath Winstone’s dips into thermal bliss. Words spread their branches, wrought in tinsel and blown glass. The album ends with a reprise of “The Longest Day” for piano alone. Resplendent and far-reaching, it is a bittersweet ending to Azimuth’s most fully realized effort, through which the project honed its sound to an art.

Azimuth was one of ECM’s most deftly realized acts, and it continues to open like a slow cloudburst every time I immerse myself in it. Its malleable formula provides seemingly endless room for possibility. Winstone’s voice sparkles in the soft focus of consistently sensitive production, a slowly flapping bird with nowhere to go but up. She and Taylor are ideal partners, forging as they do a silent smolder of emotional bonds, while Wheeler heaves his own powerful feathers with conviction. The brief addition of Tower heightens their collective sound, even as it tethers them to the earth. This is a classic set of three seminal albums, each a movement in a larger suite, where souls can dance in motions so slow that they appear as still as ice, and are just as vulnerable to heat.

<< Sam Rivers: Contrasts (ECM 1162)
>> John Abercrombie Quartet: Abercrombie Quartet (ECM 1164)

… . …

<< Bjørnstad/Darling/Rypdal/Christensen: The Sea (ECM 1545)
>> hr-Jazzensemble: Atmospheric Conditions Permitting (ECM 1549/50)