ECM Releases

Kit Downes: Obsidian (ECM 2559)

| Tyran Grillo

2559 X

Kit Downes
Obsidian

Kit Downes organs
Tom Challenger tenor saxophone (on “Modern Gods”)
Recorded November 2016 at St. John, Snape, Suffolk
Union Chapel, London
Engineer: Alex Bonney
Produced by Sun Chung
Release date: January 19, 2018

Performed on three different organs across the UK, Obsidian chronicles the spatial and temporal travels of keyboardist Kit Downes. Were this album to be turned into a book, it would require a tooled leather cover and hand-sewn binding to do even partial justice to all the care gone into its narrative. Each instrument thus embodies its own backstory, the mechanisms of which become clear not only in the intimately engineered recording but also in the interactions catalyzed by Downes’s gestural storytelling.

That said, the floating arpeggios and leading lines of “Kings,” our first leg of this journey, actualize their images not by pen but by palette knife, treading across canvas as if it were a horizontal path turned upward in defiance of gravity. Despite this perspectival flip, however, the music feels weighted by the contrary motions of its performer, who balances forces of suggestion with spontaneous deference. One imagines a boy running over hills in search of any other destiny than the one chosen for him, yet leaving an audible path so that even the blind might find him should he ever get lost. Such feelings of liberation are only intensified in a multilayered rendition of the folksong “Black Is The Colour.”

Not all in this world of hardened lava, however, is spoken in earthly tones. In “Rings Of Saturn,” Downes awakens the pipes like an intergalactic shō, and from their arousal turns outer space into inner reality, while in “Flying Foxes” he reroutes wordless carriages of animality into every unfolding theme, as in the avian hymnody of “The Gift” (written by father Paul Downes).

“Seeing Things” practices what it preaches through a more pointillist doctrine. Its marginalia gild a scripture explored more deeply in “Modern Gods.” Here the saxophone of Tom Challenger inhales from the organ even as it exhales something back into it. With a fleeting sense of form, it scales from shadow into burning triumph.

“The Bone Gambler,” as the program’s most evocative, couldn’t be more appropriately titled. With sincerity of pitch and mood, it wraps its arms around a room so beautifully timeworn that one could almost expect Tom Waits to walk in at any moment and start rasping his soul. Through the window of that same room, we gaze out upon the waters of “Ruth’s Song For The Sea” and “Last Leviathan,” elegies both. With a sincerity that can only have resulted from years of hammering on an anvil of love, these finely wrought talismans warn of continental vagaries, offering in their place a chance to sail away in boats of our own fleshly making.

Obsidian is the musical equivalent of following behind Lucy Pevensie as she escapes her war-torn world through the wardrobe to find refuge awaiting her snow-cushioned step. Let this be your doorway into something equally salvific.

Tord Gustavsen: What was said (ECM 2465)

| Tyran Grillo

What was said

Tord Gustavsen
What was said

Tord Gustavsen piano, electronics, synth bass
Simin Tander voice
Jarle Vespestad drums
Recorded April 2015 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: January 29, 2016

After leaving behind the phosphorescent crumbs of his era-defining trio recordings, Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen returns to ECM’s forest path alongside drummer Jarle Vespestad and holding a fresher lantern lit by German-Afghan vocalist Simin Tander. Gustavsen expands his palette, adding electronics and synth bass to the mix, while Tander renders her voice with lyrical and improvisational force. Taking the hymns of Gustavsen’s childhood as foundation, he and Tander enlisted the help of Afghan poet B. Hamsaaya to translate them into Pashto before balancing them with Rumi in the freer English translations of Coleman Barks. The verbal archive of Rumi-inspired American writer Kenneth Rexroth was also mined for jewels to be set in the yielding silver of the present arrangements. On that latter note, Rexroth’s “I Refuse” comes across as the album’s spiritual culmination, standing firm against the tide of history even as it imbibes itself on forgotten knowledge. Tander’s rendering thereof illustrates a life cycle of its own worth: from the pupa of suggestion to the chrysalis of accountability and finally a winged emergence of liberation.

Like fog resolving into a discernible landscape, the verses chosen for this program strip away layers of hardship to reveal the light of hope buried within. This is especially true of the Rumi selections. In “Your Grief,” Gustavsen’s melody unwraps the Sufi poet’s observational acumen as a lover would a seam of clothing, revealing not a physical but a spiritual body in which beats a heart of ephemeral loss. “What Was Said To The Rose” is a another sonic blush of whispered thoughts and corporeal singing, while “The Source Of Now” employs gentle brushwork—both literally in Vespestad’s playing and metaphorically in the sentiments—and all of it connected by an aquatic singing style.

What was seen

That the Norwegian hymns feel as integrated as they do is testament not only to the musicians but also to a shared continuity. “I See You” is thus more than an ode to our heavenly Mother and Father, but a locket of understanding that houses Tander’s voice as an earthly relic. Her subtle adlibbing is as tangible as stained glass, and equally mosaiced. The piano intro of “A Castle In Heaven” evokes that other spiritual stalwart of ECM—G. I. Gurdjieff—by clearing away ancient paths of virtue. Starting with the vigil-like awareness of “Journey Of Life” and finishing in the shaded alcove of “Sweet Melting Afterglow,” a veritable church of sound opens its pews to any and all who would bend a knee between them.

Even the album’s instrumental turns feel syntactical. Both the tender duo of Gustavsen and Vespestad that is “The Way You Play My Heart” and the playful awakening of “Rull” realize that speech is nothing without music, and vice versa. And so, what was said is also what was sung, pushed like air through lungs, throat, and mouth to turn the very ether into writing paper and our ears into eyes reading every word as if it were our last.

Giovanni Guidi: Avec le temps (ECM 2604)

| Tyran Grillo

2604 X

Giovanni Guidi
Avec le temps

Giovanni Guidi piano
Francesco Bearzatti tenor saxophone
Roberto Cecchetto guitar
Thomas Morgan double bass
João Lobo drums
Recorded November 2017, Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Mixed July 2018 by Manfred Eicher, Giovanni Guidi, and Gérard de Haro (engineer)
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: March 22, 2019

ECM has always been a label of surprises. Every now and then, however, it reaches beyond the unexpected into something eternal. Such is the feeling of Giovanni Guidi’s Avec le temps, an album so meticulous in its attention to detail, form, and formlessness that it feels inevitable. It’s one of those dates that reveals new layers with every iteration, and in doing so proves those layers to have been always with us.

The title track is a chanson by Monaco-born Léo Ferré. As the only of the set not written by Guidi, it reflects the bandleader’s equal passions for lyricism and spontaneous invention while introducing a core trio with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer João Lobo. Stripped of its poetry yet replaced with a wordless other, it travels like a caterpillar born to sing this one song before it chrysalizes into something winged.

“15th of August” introduces the full quintet with which the session is concerned, treating tenor saxophonist Francesco Bearzatti and guitarist Roberto Cecchetto as necessary organs in a maturing body. As such, their spirit of unity finds clearest expression in the relatively straightforward “No Taxi.” That said, the untethered “Johnny the Liar”  and “Postludium and a Kiss” are no strangers to continuity of purpose. Throughout the latter piece, Bearzatti lurks in the creaking of an emotional door before soaring as a guardian bird overhead to gather melodic rainfall in his bell.

Morgan, as can be expected, is just so present. He daubs only where paint is needed, applying memorable arco strokes in “Caino.” This tune is moreover a prime showcase for Guidi’s boundless imagination, cascading in the final stretch with all the beauty and pain of a world drowning in divided color schemes.

“Ti Stimo” highlights guitarist Roberto Cecchetto ability to lay down a melody that resounds even when not being played, while “Tomasz” (written in memory of trumpeter and ECM stalwart Tomasz Stanko) concludes in earnest farewell. One of the most exquisite creations to grace these years in recent memory, it prays in circles until it cuts a hole in the ground large enough to fall through in search of those who have left us.

Despite the album’s title—which translates in English to “It may take time”—it takes no time at all to catch on to the beauty of what’s going on here. This will surely go down as one of the ECM’s finest of the decade. Timely and timeless.

Andrew Cyrille: Lebroba (ECM 2589)

| Tyran Grillo

Lebroba.jpg

Andrew Cyrille
Lebroba

Wadada Leo Smith trumpet
Bill Frisell guitar
Andrew Cyrille drums
Recorded July 2017 at Reservoir Studios, New York
Engineer: Rick Kwan
Produced by Sun Chung
Release date: November 2, 2018

When drummer Andrew Cyrille broke tension with The Declaration of Musical Independence in 2016, the universe seemed to beg for more. And so, with producer Sun Chung at the helm, he stepped into the studio again, this time retaining guitarist Bill Frisell and adding only trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith to the mix. Then again, “mix” is far from the appropriate word here, as the trio unifies under the influence of processes far beyond the stirring of some proverbial pot would imply.

Among the many excitations of Lebroba is the fact that it marks the first occasion for Frisell and Smith to record together. “Worried Woman” almost makes one lament this fact, as the two are clearly suited for each other, especially when bonded by Cyrille’s chemical reactions. This opening tune, written by the guitarist, is architected as preface to Smith’s four-part tribute to Alice Coltrane. Taking her spiritual presence as inspiration, and prompting the musicians via both graphic scores and standard notation, he leads as comfortably as he recedes, pushing terrain beneath him as an earthly treadmill. Frisell and Cyrille, meanwhile, deepen their cosmic relationship without the merest flicker of predetermination, opting instead for a freer correspondence within boundaries before breaking down the set to drums alone: a master class in psychosomatic response.

The bandleader’s title track, a fractured blues for the 21st century, reveals its treasures just enough to sense their shine yet without letting on the nature of their constitution. As in his “Pretty Beauty,” which ends things as they began, it erases as many words as it writes across a palimpsest of self-awareness. Between them is the spontaneously created “TGD,” which sounds like the autopsy of a laser gun performed by someone who’s taught the procedure a thousand times before. Its forensic qualities are superseded only by an overwhelming delicacy of intuition, which now more than ever touches the ears with unerring relevance.

Andrew Cyrille Quartet: The Declaration of Musical Independence (ECM 2430)

| Tyran Grillo

The Declaration of Musical Independence

Andrew Cyrille Quartet
The Declaration of Musical Independence

Bill Frisell guitar
Richard Teitelbaum synthesizer, piano
Ben Street double bass
Andrew Cyrille drums, percussion
Recorded July 2014 at Brooklyn Recording
Engineer: Rick Kwan
Mixing engineer: Rick Kwan
Produced by Sun Chung
Release date: September 23, 2016

The Declaration of Musical Independence is more than drummer Andrew Cyrille’s ECM leader debut. It’s a veritable document thrown into the living waters of jazz history. Eschewing expectations by means of the very kit that courts them, he welcomes guitarist Bill Frisell, keyboardist Richard Teitelbaum, and bassist Ben Street for a faithful reading of his emergent articles.

Article 1: Centeredness is a Way of Life

John Coltrane’s “Coltrane Time” is match-lit helium in slow motion, treating the core as spinal. Cyrille sets the stage with his playful take on this Trane rhythm, threading it like a bead along invisible wire. Invisible, that is, until Frisell’s distortions flower like a tree of nerve impulses drawn with an anatomist’s attention to detail. It’s a feeling carried over in the guitarist’s own “Kaddish,” which by quiet dint turns brainwaves into melody.

Article 2: Understanding the Moment Means Understanding Each Other

This tenet is unquenchably expressed in three freer excursions. Where “Sanctuary” and “Manfred” look simultaneously within and without in order to braid connections of molecular value, “Dazzling (Percchordally Yours)” takes Cyrille’s own chordal suggestions as cues for spontaneous composition. Here, Teitelbaum’s textural approach to the synthesizer possesses the studio like a ghost in search of bodies through which to voice messages from some great beyond, only to end up the other way around: with instruments piercing its translucent skin by grace of sonic needlepoint.

Article 3: Treat Echoes Not as Symptoms but as Causes

Ben Street’s “Say” is the album’s one dose of symmetry. A riveting combination of liquid guitar, fulcrumed bassing, and drums so anciently brushed they feel like cave drawings, it eats resonance as if survival were otherwise impossible. Teitelbaum likewise divides his own “Herky Jerky” along bipartisan lines, engendering a rougher blush of purpose.

Article 4: Look Back to Listen Forward

The remaining pieces, both by Frisell, speak to this truth most deeply. Whether in the solo dream that is “Begin” or the concluding quartet of “Song for Andrew No. 1,” a philosophy of continuity prevails, drinking air like water, and filling producer Sun Chung’s masterful cast with diurnal plaster. All of which makes for one of the profoundest statements to fall under ECM’s purview in years.

Joe Lovano: Trio Tapestry (ECM 2615)

| Tyran Grillo

2615 X

Joe Lovano
Trio Tapestry

Joe Lovano tenor saxophone, tarogato, gongs
Marilyn Crispell piano
Carmen Castaldi drums, percussion
Recorded March 2018 at Sear Sound, New York
Engineer: Chris Allen
Mixing: July 2018 at Studios La Buissonne by Gérard de Haro (engineer), Manfred Eicher, and Joe Lovano
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: January 25, 2019

After decades of appearing on ECM as sideman, Joe Lovano makes his leader debut for the label. Bearing the gift of 11 original compositions built around 12-tone processes, the saxophonist celebrates life and creativity with a new trio, welcoming pianist Marilyn Crispell and drummer Carmen Castaldi into New York’s Sear Sound studio. The result is one of the most intimate jazz experiences to come out from the label in years.

The gongs on “One Time In” process as if grieving for silence, itself so rare a commodity in today’s world that it’s all we can do to seek out a musical experience as enmeshed in stillness as this. The effect is such that when the piano rains down on “Seeds Of Change,” we’ve already become accustomed to melody as a reflection of what quivers between the notes. So much of what follows reminds us that, in art, form and function need not ever be the same. For if the breathy poetry of “Sparkle Lights” and “Tarrassa” are indicative of something tangible, they’re equally aligned to something diffuse.

At times, as in “Piano/Drum Episode” and “Gong Episode,” gestures are as literal as can be, and yet also ineffable. At others, as in “Mystic,” the feeling is so mysterious as to be undeniably immediate. The latter tune features Lovano on the Hungarian tarogato, a mournful woodwind that blows aside the curtains of the future like gusts from the past. Crispell and Castaldi are in finest form in “Rare Beauty” and “Spirit Lake,” either of which might aptly describe the mood of what we’re hearing. The pianist understands that every note has the potential to become a sutra, while the drummer fills the air with diacritical markings. How glorious, then, that all of this should culminate in “The Smiling Dog,” a freely explosive romp through streets paved in grainy night.

Trio Tapestry is the essence of atmosphere as substance and the soundtrack of things unseen, singing in honor of those without songs.

Jakob Bro: Bay Of Rainbows (ECM 2618)

| Tyran Grillo

2618 X

Jakob Bro
Bay Of Rainbows

Jakob Bro guitar
Thomas Morgan double bass
Joey Baron drums
Recorded lived July 2017 at Jazz Standard, New York
Recording engineers: James A. Farber and Paul Zinman
Assistant: Jeanne Velonis
SoundByte Productions Inc., NY
Mixed July 2018 at Studios La Buissonne by Manfred Eicher, Jakob Bro, and Gérard de Haro (engineer)
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: October 5, 2018

Recorded live over two nights of performances at New York City’s Jazz Standard in July of 2017, Bay Of Rainbows presents the trio of guitarist Jakob Bro, bassist Thomas Morgan, and drummer Joey Baron in a state of deep communication. Although the album’s title refers to Sinus Iridum (i.e., Bay of Rainbows), an impact crater on the moon for which a land deed was jokingly gifted to the bandleader’s daughter, the music is as terrestrial as it does lunar. The contemplative tone for which Bro always strives is thus something of a philosophical paradox, reaching beyond home while being grounded in its streets. “Red Hook,” for example, refers to the section of Brooklyn where he lived with Ben Street and Mark Turner while cutting his teeth on the New York jazz scene, but has taken on much of the travels that have washed over him between then and now. In it the trio works in gossamer tandem, leaving behind a trail of fond associations so as to keep all the heartaches away from vulnerable hands.

“Copenhagen,” too, is a dream of home. Its slightly urban surface is reflective enough to see ourselves across an ocean of possibility in places we might never know firsthand. The cohesive delicacy with which Bro threads this vision, in combination with the lag-free responsiveness of his rhythm section, weaves a romantic tapestry indeed. “Dug” splits the guitar in two, layering a starry background with meteor showers of melody. Morgan and Baron make audible every tremor of dark matter between them as Bro crashes into dust in slow motion. Then, “Evening Song.” Despite being a tune this trio has played hundreds of times, it burns like coals, embedded in the moment, with promises of dawn. Bro’s echoing waves are enough to propel Morgan’s vessel forward, hollowed out to make room for one more song.

The album is embraced by two different versions of “Mild.” In both, although to slightly offset effect, a touching arpeggio works its flesh around the bone of a memory. To this, Morgan and Baron add land for that emerging body to walk along, tracking with the precision of a movie camera between lessons learned on the way to those yet to come. From that core is unraveled a sound so complete that it’s a wonder the listener finds any room to be present within it. But find that room the listener does, welcomed as an honored guest for the story being told.

Jakob Bro: Returnings (ECM 2546)

| Tyran Grillo

2546 X

Jakob Bro
Returnings

Jakob Bro guitar
Palle Mikkelborg trumpet, flugelhorn
Thomas Morgan bass
Jon Christensen drums
Recorded July 2016 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineers: Peter Espen Ursfjord and Jan Erik Kongshaug (mixing)
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: March 23, 2018

Danish guitarist Jakob Bro was born for ECM. Not only because he shares a certain balance of sound and space, but also because he isn’t afraid to let the music travel wherever it may until a destination becomes clear to everyone involved. In this album, perhaps more than any other he has recorded for the label, he unwraps a gift so cosmic it’s a wonder anything so secular as a CD could contain it.

If the opening bleed of “Oktober” is any indication (and it is), we should prepare ourselves for a practically weightless journey, so that when the tesseract of “Strands” seeks purchase in our floating minds, we are ready to be tethered to something otherworldly. This feeling of spirit over flesh prevails throughout the set, especially in two pieces written for the dead: “Song For Nicolai” (dedicated to late Danish bassist Nicolai Munch-Hansen) and “Lyskaster” (in memory of Bro’s father). In both of these, we feel the redolence of Palle Mikkelborg’s flugelhorn, the chalky substance of Jon Christensen’s drumming, and the close-eyed pointillism of bassist Thomas Morgan. Bro generally keeps himself aligned to the background, content in listening as layer upon layer is applied by his sensitive bandmates, taking gentle initiative only in the transcendent “Hamsun.”

Mikkelborg offers two tunes of his own design. Where “View” finds Morgan and Christensen offering a protracted introduction before the composer and Bro separate each melodic line into its filament components, “Youth” pairs guitar and trumpet in a chemically separating farewell. Mikkelborg also cowrote the nebular title track with Bro, constructing a theme around the letters ECM and Manfred Eicher’s name. A fitting tribute to one who is indeed music itself.

Michel Benita Ethics: River Silver (ECM 2483)

| Tyran Grillo

River Silver

Michel Benita Ethics
River Silver

Michel Benita double bass
Matthieu Michel flugelhorn
Mieko Miyazaki koto
Eivind Aarset guitar, electronics
Philippe Garcia drums
Recorded April 2015, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: January 15, 2016

On River Silver, Paris-based bassist Michel Benita makes his ECM leader debut with the borderless Ethics ensemble. Joined by Swiss flugelhorn player Matthieu Michel, koto player Mieko Miyazaki, Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset (with whom he plays in Andy Sheppard’s quartet), and French drummer Philippe Garcia, Benita architects a veritable museum of mostly original creations. Even before a single note is heard, as Benita tells me in a recent email interview, the very name of the project is resonant in a way that caught the attention of producer Manfred Eicher:

“The world needs more ethics: understanding, empathy, and sharing. That’s how I hear this word. And the idea of sharing between different cultures is very important for me. Hence, our lineup. The band functions collectively, without ego. ECM, too, represents a certain kind of musical ethics. The band was almost made for the label, though not consciously, and I was very happy when Manfred recognized our familial relationship upon hearing the first album.”

In contrast to said first album, released in 2009 as Ethics on Outhere Records, for which Benita worked more laboriously in the post-production phase to craft a decidedly studio-oriented sound, River Silver followed ECM’s usual three-day regimen in Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, under the watchful ear of engineer Stefanio Amerio. Because the album was recorded without overdubs, Benita found himself approaching it differently from its predecessor:

“I had rehearsed mostly with Eivind in his home in Norway, to get the forms and sound directions right. But Manfred made his own very interesting suggestions and very soon in the process, as always with him, he developed an idea of sequencing. His overall conception is pretty much summed up by the expression ‘Less is more,’ both in the playing and exposition of a theme.One thing I learned from him this time (as when working with Andy Sheppard) is that you can record any band live, even with loud guitar amps, all together in the same room, and without wearing headphones. That’s a big relief and gives you a lot of freedom and concentration.”

Sure enough, the relationship between freedom and concentration is evident throughout River Silver as its philosophical and compositional foundation. And while the instrumentation is atypical for welcoming the koto’s plucked soul into a jazz context, the decision feels inevitable when in service of such intuitive music, honed over five years of collaboration.

“The whole Ethics project was actually born following my encounter with Mieko. I first saw her play with guitarist Nguyên Lê and I was very impressed with her charisma on stage and her sound, which blended perfectly into jazz-oriented music. So we met a few times and decided to start rehearsing tunes that I wrote along the way. Each rehearsal gave me new ideas, as I was starting to hear what could work best with my bass. Then, while listening back to our duo recordings, I thought of the other musicians whose textures would become part of this quintet.”

The set’s opener, “Back From The Moon” (a title lifted from a Joni Mitchell lyric) lays down a carpet so tessellated that it’s impossible to disagree with Benita’s democratic self-characterization. It’s easy to trace individual threads—from the rhythm section’s relaxed traction to the thematic unity of flugelhorn and koto, and Aarset’s reflections echoing through them all—but each feels as much supportive of the other four as the other way around. Miyazaki’s koto, for example, is a natural force in this configuration, not so much weaving as acting the loom for the others’ lyrical shuttles. Her evolution from single notes to resplendent strums reveals a narrative patience that would be absent without the band working as a whole. Despite this scope of vision, the music’s genesis emerged in relatively intimate quarters:

“I locked myself up for 10 days, alone in a friend’s apartment in Paris, where I wrote and demoed all the music with my bass, a guitar, and keyboards. This was a very nice experience. ‘River Silver’ is an illustration of the Seine, visible outside my window every day during the writing process. On some evenings, it really did look like silver. I like the abstract and organic collective improvisation of that tune.”

In the wake of this progressive introduction, the title track floats into urban slumber, and speaks even more deeply to the inwardness of what we encounter therein. “I See Altitudes” relegates the koto to a more backgrounded role and finds Michel soaring over Benita’s cartographic wanderings, while Aarset writes across the sky in starlit script. Furthering the metaphor, “Off The Coast” launches its intimate fleet into uncharted waters, wielding its navigational instruments with archival purpose. Aarset’s comet tails are the visual language of this introspective theme, held together by the ether of Miyazaki’s arpeggios and Garcia’s cymbals.

“Toonari” is the most cinematic of the tracks, yet leaves us in suspended animation, prepared to be “Snowed In” by a tender memory. For good measure, Benita welcomes three tunes not composed by him. Where both “Yeavering,” by Northumbrian folk musician Kathryn Tickell, and “Lykken,” a ballad by Norwegian songwriter Eyvind Alnæs (1872-1932), are swaths of lushest monochrome, Miyazaki’s “Hacihi Gatsu” (a misprint of “Hachi Gatsu,” Japanese for “August”) draws from a greener palette.

Ethics is a dream group in the truest sense, because everything it plays is of a dream. As such, it reflects Benita’s increasingly open approach to space and making music within it. All the more appropriate that he should have found a new home in ECM territory. On that note, even as I post this review Benita is in the studio again with Michel, Garcia, and new Flemish recruit Jozef Dumoulin on Fender Rhodes. Our hearts are open and waiting.