ECM Releases

Keith Jarrett: The Survivors’ Suite (ECM 1085)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1085

Keith Jarrett
The Survivors’ Suite

Keith Jarrett piano, soprano saxophone, bass recorder, celeste, osi drums
Dewey Redman tenor saxophone, percussion
Charlie Haden bass
Paul Motian drums, percussion
Recorded April 1976 at Talent Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

A quick perusal of the personnel and mechanics of this album is practically all one needs to get an idea of the tonal colors and moods with which its imagery is composed. The Survivors’ Suite finds Jarrett in a multi-instrumental role along with the all-star cast that makes up his American Quartet. The sheer synergy of the playing truly makes this music shimmer. For this reason, I hesitate to single out particular solos and motifs. Suffice it to say each member has his moment of glory in the concisely knit fabric of the album’s 49-minute duration.

The music shifts dramatically from soulful dirges to upbeat thematic variations in a vibrant flow of ideas. A sense of control reigns. One never feels lost while listening (or is, in fact, lost but doesn’t care), for the surroundings are so resplendent with life. This is a supremely evocative experience and the similarity of associations it has inspired in so many listeners is striking to say the least (peruse a few other reviews, and you’ll see what I mean). The Survivors’ Suite reaches beyond jazz, even if firmly rooted in jazz’s soil. Its sound is vast yet intimate, breathing with the sheer life force of its music-makers. There is a marked difference between its two sections, simply titled “Beginning” and “Conclusion.” They are not polar opposites and are more than complementary. They walk the same trails, perhaps pointing out different sights along the way, all the while knowing they will soon meet again. Where the former is timid yet progressive, the latter is democratic and viscous.

This is, without a doubt, a high point among Jarrett’s many ECM outings. It is expertly recorded (as evidenced by its superb balance of warmth and coolness), fluidly played, and widely cherished, as I am sure it will continue to be for decades to come.

<< Eberhard Weber: The Following Morning (ECM 1084)
>> Keith Jarrett: Hymns/Spheres (ECM 1086/87)

Mal Waldron Trio: Free at Last (ECM 1001)

| Tyran Grillo

1001

Mal Waldron Trio
Free at Last

Mal Waldron piano
Isla Eckinger bass
Clarence Becton drums
Recorded November 24, 1969 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Kurt Rapp
Supervision: Manfred Eicher
Produced by Manfred Scheffner* + Jazz by Post
Release date: January 1, 1970

A cymbal riff from Clarence Becton introduces this respectable outing from Mal Waldron and company as bassist Isla Eckinger and the bandleader jump in for some enjoyable interplay. Yet what begins as an energetic ride turns somber through Eckinger’s rumination. Such solos lend deeper insight into the goings on, underscored by Waldron’s staccato mastication. Ballads are the album’s ventricles. A sweltering slog through love and darkened streets, “Balladina” shines with a hardened beauty all its own, while “Willow Weep for Me” is therapeutic like a good long cry. Both tracks have been strategically placed as penultimate bookends and serve as two-way doors into the struggles on either side. Others, like “1-3-234,” center the listener with needed uplift from these brooding asides, culminating in the concise and playful “Boo.”

This recording, ECM’s first, represents what was to become the label’s defining edge: namely, the allowance for (and foregrounding of) space in the recording of jazz. Seeing as this was already part of Waldron’s base approach, selectively pulling at roots while grafting on new ones, this disc was a suitable vehicle for his raw aesthetic. Its melodies may not stick in your head, but are stepping-stones toward a careful melancholy. And while ECM would vastly improve and enlarge its recording repertoire in the decades to come, there remains something comforting—just shy of innocent—about this album. If anything, this is a jazz of introversion, an intimate and myopic exposition of fleeting interactions that neither invites nor pushes away.

As Peter Rüedi has it, “free” meant something quite different to Waldron than it did to the more overtly anarchic figureheads of the waning sixties. It was, rather, “a quality that starts with structure and comes back to structure.” In light of this, Free at Last is the point of departure for a label that has since never looked back, even as it carries these sounds in its heart.

*Scheffner’s name is incorrectly spelled as “Scheffnfr” on the original LP.

For my thoughts on the 2019 vinyl reissue, click here.

>> Just Music: s/t (ECM 1002)

Shankar: Who’s To Know (ECM 1195)

| Tyran Grillo

ECM 1195

Shankar
Who’s To Know

Shankar 10-string double violin, tamboura
Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman mridangam
Zakir Hussain tabla
V. Lakshminarayana conductor (tala keeping)
Recorded November 1980 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Shankar and Manfred Eicher

Tamilian violinist Lakshminarayana Shankar offers listeners a beautiful and powerful experience in this, his first outing for ECM. Shankar plays a 10-stringed instrument of his own design, and his personal hand in its construction is as deeply evident as his playing of it. Over a steady drone of tamboura and attuned rhythmic support from Zakir Hussain and Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman, Shankar’s flights of improvisation are free to soar. His melodies are driven by deep recognition of intent, visceral and immediate.

We are treated here to two long-form pieces, averaging 23 minutes each. Though distinct in form and mood, they are unified by an overarching sense of commitment and, I daresay, surrender. The first, Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi, introduces its theme with fluid precision. Shankar’s fingers seem never to rest on any single note for long, carried as they are by the as-yet-unspoken rhythms lurking just beyond the horizon. And so, when those rhythms do at last come to be articulated, the listener is salved by the comfort of a promise fulfilled. Ananda Nadamadum Tillai Sankara, on the other hand, carries itself forward with a touch of vulnerability, offering itself to the fate of its own musical environment. This is a more somber companion piece that slips into more adventurous registers and changes of key, and with a determination all its own. Eventually the violin turns in on itself, leaving our percussionists to play us out in an intimate call and response, culminating in the violin’s lilting swan song before the tamboura fades into silence.

Those familiar with Carnatic music will find much to admire in Shankar’s signature style and inexhaustible virtuosity. This is arguably his least “fusionesque” album to date, drawing its borders with reliable pigments that clearly serve its musicians well. Brimming with inspired playing, effortless execution, and a singular melodic sensibility, this is an impassioned and vivid record from start to finish and will ever remain an ECM jewel.

<< Goodhew/Jensen/Knapp: First Avenue (ECM 1194)
>> Thomas Demenga/Heinz Reber: Cellorganics (ECM 1196 NS)