Colin Vallon piano Patrice Moret double bass Julian Sartorious drums
Recorded February 2016, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: January 13, 2017
For their third ECM recording, pianist Colin Vallon, bassist Patrice Moret, and drummer Julian Sartorious climb even deeper down the rabbit hole of their creative integrity. The music here was recorded without headphones, allowing the musicians to map open-bordered sonic territory. Meticulousness flows through “Sisyphe,” in which the dialogue between instruments follows the pulse of a vaster circulatory system. Such subtle insistence as that expressed in this opening track shows up that much more vividly on our listening radars. We know the end because he hear it in the beginning.
Titles are as much suggestive of an inner spirit as of the skin in which that spirit resides. Case in point would be “Tsunami,” which from insistent beginnings regresses into a memory of the quake that set it off. Moret’s centrifugal bassing is unassuming enough that we might not even be aware of its force until we’re caught in it, while Sartorious brings a three-dimensional realism to every curling tendril of water. And while the tune does build to peak intensity, one never senses danger. “L’Onde” is a distant companion, and after some cinematic ellipses transitions into a playful center before returning to form. The title track likewise undoes its own promises by meeting expectation halfway with something that, while rhythmically sound, nevertheless dislocates its own body.
“Smile” takes a more geometric approach, flitting through changes of key in the way a face might through emotions. Sartorious is a wonder, his distorted repetitions existing only to reveal the smallest disparities between them. The same holds true of “Tinguely,” the only contribution of Moret’s pen, in which prepared piano bejewels the very shadows on the way to a high-energy build. In much of what follows, including the melodic highlight “Morn” and the collectively improvised curio cabinet that is “Oort,” one encounters understated exuberance, a montage approach to memory, and deepest respect for the foundational arpeggio. For these reasons and too many more to articulate, Vallon’s is one of the most unpretentious piano trios in existence, and Danse further proof of its staying power in the ECM canon as a quiet but impression-heavy tesseract of sound. Let us hope it spins as long as we do.
Ralph Towner classical guitar, 12-string guitar
Recorded February 2016, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: February 3, 2017
Any new solo album from Ralph Towner is reason to celebrate. Even more so when you consider the guitarist and ECM veteran was just shy of his 76th birthday at the time of this recording. Not that one would know it by the joie de vivre that infuses even its quietest moments. In the opening “Pilgrim” we find Towner at his quintessential best, gluing a mosaic of disparate scales. There’s a domestic feeling to this piece, as if the occasional strums were the sounds of a straw broom moving across a wooden floor.
Towner’s playing can always be counted on for tactility, unafraid as he is to let details shine through. This is especially true of “I’ll Sing To You,” one of the set’s most melodic tunes, and in which every scrape of calloused fingers is captured in vivid close-up. As a composer, he excels in evoking a title’s movement or feeling. To wit: the sashaying gait of “Saunter” and the Baroque-inspired footwork of “Dolomiti Dance.” Of a kindred spirit are the two tracks featuring 12-string. Where “Clarion Call” is filled with stops and starts, thus working its magic through interruption of a spell, “Biding Time” echoes with reflective purpose.
Both “Shard” and “Rewind” are standbys from the Oregon songbook, and by their inclusion speak to the will of nostalgia. The latter tune ends the album with undulations of narrative. Before that we are treated to “Blue As In Bley.” Dedicated to Paul Bley, who passed away not long before Towner stepped into the studio, it’s a complex and finely wrought piece, which like the improvisations of its dedicatee cohere by magic of immediacy. A smattering of briefer pieces injects the discs of this musical spine with extra fluid. Of these, “Ubi Sunt” is a highlight for its choral beauty.
The title song by Victor Young has long been a source of inspiration for Towner, who revisits it here in humility. In his hands it feels like an old video watched in quiet ponderance. Every scene is a chance at renewal, proof that not only songs but also their interpreters can grow better with age.
Theo Bleckmann voice Ben Monder guitar Shai Maestro piano Chris Tordini double bass John Hollenbeck drums
Recorded January 2016 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James A. Farber
Assistant: Akihiro Nishimura
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: January 27, 2017
Through the fields, why must I go home? Through the night, I see starlight.
Vocalist and composer Theo Bleckmann, encountered most recently by ECM listeners in collaboration with the Julia Hülsmann Quartet, strikes out on his own with his first session for the label as leader. Then again, “strikes out” is too forceful a term for music that submerges its face so deeply into the font of mortality that it arises glistening with afterlife.
For this journey he is joined by guitarist Ben Monder, pianist Shai Maestro, bassist Chris Tordini, and drummer John Hollenbeck, all of whom create an experience of ambient integrity. In “Semblance,” tides of guitar and piano find an intimate shoreline along which to flow, introducing the album with a tenderness exceeded by what follows. It’s also the first of scattered instrumentals, including the microscopic “Littlefields” (to which is added the tracery of Hollenbeck) and “Cortège” (aglow with Tordini’s cinematic bassing). Even—if not especially—when singing wordlessly, Bleckmann paints with his entire being: a feeling magnified in such near-volcanic meditations as “The Mission” and the title track. The latter’s ability to wring fire from ice, and vice versa, is more than alchemical; it’s experiential. Monder’s guitar takes on a revelatory tone, and presages the distortions of Bleckmann’s voice as it turns in on itself in demise. Like the transitions from rural to urban sprawl in “Wither,” it builds its own machinery of reckoning one gear at a time.
As for words, they fall in a quiet storm. While Bleckmann’s slow take on “Comedy Tonight” transcends the Stephen Sondheim staple in morose orbit, “To Be Shown To Monks At A Certain Temple” sets the words of 8th-century poet-monk Chiao Jan. Its sustained guitar, anchored by bass and drums, spins a fragrant web across which Bleckmann’s vocal spider may crawl in search of enlightenment, content enough to shine a voice through every dew drop as if it were an amplifier. His own words inhabit “Fields” and “Take My Life,” each a long-distance call from soul to soul. The latter’s ode to self-sufficiency finds Monder articulating that inner struggle and Maestro lighting torches of wisdom along the way, until the body is a vessel of vessels, sailing into itself to do it all over again.
Dim the light inside my eyes Then fill my lungs with quiet Let me subside to states more serene Extinguish complexities in my dream
Bobo Stenson piano Anders Jormin double bass Jon Fält drums
Recorded May 2017, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: January 19, 2018
After a six-year hiatus, pianist Bobo Stenson, bassist Anders Jormin, and drummer Jon Fält return to the studio with a new direction in tow. The path of said direction carves its way through equally varied territory, but with a philosophical nakedness of association that distinguishes it from previous outings. Compositionally speaking, the focus is on Jormin, who contributes five new tunes. In each of these, especially the Hamlet-inspired “Doubt Thou The Stars” and intimate “Three Shades Of A House,” the broad-ranging palette of not only the composer but also Fält is showcased.
Whether coasting along the edges of consciousness with contemplative themes or shifting into a midtempo groove without looking back, the trio moves as a simpatico vessel, attuned to the subtlest changes of wind and current. Jormin’s confidence is expressed through unforced engagement, which in “Stilla” inspires colorful adlibbing from Stenson. The bandleader’s only original this time around is “Alice,” a haunting piece finding him in dialogue with bowed bass, not a hint of disagreement within earshot.
A smattering of bandmember favorites rounds out the set, including a unified rendition of Cuban songwriter Silvio Rodríguez’s title track, as well as classical melodies drawn from the oeuvres of Béla Bartók (“Wedding Song From Poniky”), Erik Satie (“Elégie”), and Federico Mompou (“Canción y Danza VI”). The latter two are standouts for their respectful introductions and denouements. The freely improvised “Kalimba Impressions” is also noteworthy for its synchronicity and lush, modal development. At once grounded in the source material and straying far from it, it gives testimony to Stenson’s favoring of poetry over prosody.
Although perhaps not quite the masterpiece that 2012’s Indicumwas, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t occupy its own territory, beyond the trappings of comparison. As unassuming as an observer whose thoughtful profundity far outweighs the extroversions of its regard, it prefers a quieter approach, masterful in its own way.
(This article originally appeared in the August 2019 issue of The New York City Jazz Record, a full PDF of which is available here.)
Stefano Battaglia piano, prepared piano
Recorded May 2016 at Fazioli Concert Hall, Sacile (Italy)
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: September 15, 2017
No one can comfort me in my misery
In my lamenting and suffering for love
But for the one in the beautiful mirage…
Following a string of concept albums—including the cinematically inflected Re: Pasolini—and endeavors with his trio, pianist Stefano Battaglia returns to ECM with a two-disc solo effort of mostly spontaneous music. Playing piano and prepared piano—and sometimes both—he weaves together a program from behind closed doors and live on stage, and by its sequence tells the story of a shoreline thirsty for the tide.
The piano at his fingertips is a printing press, every letter and ornament moved carefully into place before transferring messages to the pages of our inner ear. From the sweeping grandeur of “Migralia” to the brittle unspooling of “Brenner Toccata,” he understands that the sea is a force of forces, each drop with the potential to swallow vessels whole. He dots the map between them with exes and lines, charting terrain both vertical (“Horgos e Roszke”) and horizontal (“Life”). Like the sustains breathing throughout “Lampedusa,” his notes resonate as gifts for the broken.
Preparation of a piano is often seen as a way of expanding its vocabulary. Battaglia, however, treats it like an endoscopic camera into the instrument’s very heart. Taken as a measurement of its pulse, the gong-like meditation of “Processional” and rhythmic intensity of the brief “Dogon” indicate a healthy organism whose dreams are as melodic as they are ineffable. “Destino” is, perhaps, the rawest of these improvisations. It feels like déjà vu, folding time into a mysterious origami.
The title track is one of five composed pieces in the set. Among them, its archaeology of recall is matched only by the urgency of “Migration Mantra,” a wave of untold stories given room to breathe. In light of which the Arabic traditional “Lamma Bada Yatathanna” glows with all the beauty of life in its hands. A necessary touch of wordlessness for a world that can’t keep its mouth shut.
Mona Boutchebak vocals Derya Turkan kemençe Helge Norbakken percussion Pedram Khavar Zamini tumbak Jon Balke keyboards Barokksolistene Bjarte Eike violin, leader Alison Luthmers violin Øivind Nussle violin Milos Valent viola Per Buhre viola Torbjørn Köhl viola Judith Maria Blomsterberg violoncello Mime Brinkmann violoncello Johannes Lundberg double bass Recorded January 2017 at Madstun and The Village Recording, Copenhagen
Engineer: Thomas Vang
Mixed May 2017 at The Village Recording by Thomas Vang and Jon Balke
Mastering: Christoph Stickel, MSM Studios, Munich
Produced by Jon Balke
Release date: November 3, 2017
Even when we drink entire seas, we stand amazed
that our lips are still as dry as dunes… and endlessly we seek the sea to wet our lips, without seeing that our lips are seaside dunes and we the sea. –Attar Faridu Din
Divisive times call for unifying music, and that’s exactly what Jon Balke’s Siwan project has created. Taking Al Andalus and its culture of inclusion—convivencia—as inspiration, the pianist and his progressive assembly weave for us an anthem of humanity. “There is no room or time now for the division between them and us,” writes Balke in a liner note. “We are them and they are us.” Such thinking is already inherent in the instrumentation. Encompassing Balke himself on keyboards, Pedram Khavar Zamini and Helge Norbakken on percussion, and Derya Turkan onkemençe, all infused by the strings of Barokksolistene under the lead violin of Bjarte Eike, it feels alive with borderless awakening. But the light of that dawn rests surely in singer Mona Boutchebak, who joins the project in solidarity.
Boutchebak’s voice is quill to the ensemble’s paper, an artisan of a yearning so ancient that it feels immediately with us. The doorway to it all is “Duda” (Doubt), wherein poetry of Ibn Al Zaqqaq (12th century, Spain) ride a Baroque-like wave of strings and harpsichord. This transitions into a more delicate accompaniment of percussion as Boutchebak sounds the call for a sweeter love than that with which the world has become so distractedly obsessed. In response, the mournful cry of Turkan’s kemençe weeps for fallen grace.
Kindred spirits flow through the ensuing songs. Across spectrums of sorrow in “Castigo” (another setting of Ibn Al Zaqqaq), Boutchebak understands that singing is closest to speaking: without communication, it fails. And communicate she does, speaking the words of Saint John of the Cross (16th century, Spain) in “Sin Nada Querer” (Wanting Nothing) as if they were letters to be opened and read by candlelight. “To attain pleasure in everything,” she begins, “seek pleasure in nothing.” A philosophy put into practice by the musicians at hand.
Intimate details underscore these sentiments. Distant storms and rainfall trace the edges of “Itimad” and “Desmayar Se” (Swooning), each an ode to the timelessness of love, while the title track and “Del Rey” dig into atmospheric soil with crowding voices. The latter is one of a few instrumental ligaments, of which Zamini’s “ZemZemeh” is a highlight. Other remarkable amalgamations include the fluidly arranged “Aun Bebiendo” (Even When We Drink), which sets a text of Attar Faridu Din, a 13th-century Sufi mystic from Nichapur, Iran, and the Andalusian traditional “Ma Kontou,” for which Boutchebak sings unaccompanied, repeating the verse like a mantra. Because truth is always worth hearing, and must be repeated until it shines.
Craig Taborn piano, electronics Chris Speed tenor saxophone, clarinet Chris Lightcap double bass, guitar Dave King drums, electronic percussion
Recorded May 2016 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James A. Farber
Assistant: Tim Marchiafava
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: February 3, 2017
In the footsteps of two successful leader dates for ECM, pianist Craig Taborn rolls the die of paradigm once again and hits a solid four with Chris Speed on tenor saxophone and clarinet, Chris Lightcap on bass and guitar, and Dave King on drums and electronic percussion. Opener “The Shining One” is sure to delight fans of label mate Tim Berne, whose penchant for complex geometry is echoed here. Comparison aside, there’s a DNA helix all its own down which these musicians slide toward endings as abrupt as their beginnings. Speed navigates the bandleader’s genetic code as if it were his own back yard, while Lightcap and King engage in sequencing that feels at once parasitic and parthenogenetic.
“Abandoned Reminder” unravels its story from whispering electronics, as Taborn narrates a ballad-turned-trip down a stairway of psychological proportion. Such changes are indicative of an overall constitution, which by suggestion of an unusual fluidity activates proteins in underused listening muscles. The title track and “The Great Silence” are remarkable in this regard. Their enmeshment of soft virtue and hard truth is the quartet’s calling card. Like the arpeggios that thread both in their final phases, they treat predictability as a springboard for its own undoing.
Says Taborn of working with such widely accomplished musicians, “This music trades on transparency. I wanted all the elements to be crystalline, so that the layers of the music work like a prism.” Indeed, prismatic effects abound throughout“New Glory,” in which Taborn and Speed exchange unveiled conversation, and “Ancient.” The latter’s transition from bass monologue to ritual confluence shows a band working with patience and detail. As the parts, so the whole. Whether in the resonant piano-drums duet of “Subtle Living Equations” or the cosmic textures of “Phantom Ratio,” which floats Speed’s tenor on an ocean of nostalgic loops, the effect is consistently appropriate to the theme at hand. And while Taborn’s writing tends to pay homage to those themes at microscopic levels, his nod to Roscoe Mitchell’s “Jamaican Farewell” sees the jewel for the facets, and shines a methodical light of appreciation through a heart whose every beat is musical gospel. This is good news indeed.
Matthieu Bordenave tenor saxophone Walter Lang piano Shinya Fukumori drums
Recorded March 2017, La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: February 16, 2018
When the sun shines, birds sing, the oak woods here and there grow hazy, I’ll have dirty palms that make a gritty noise. –Kenji Miyazawa, “Spring” (trans. Hiroaki Sato)
For 2 Akis presents the ECM debut of drummer Shinya Fukumori. Born and raised in Osaka, he learned to play violin, piano, and guitar before relocating to the United States at 17 to pursue the drums. Yet after graduating from Berklee College of Music and immersing himself in the jazz canon, he became so inspired by classic ECM recordings, including Eberhard Weber’s Silent Feet and Keith Jarrett’s My Song, that he resolved himself to one day record for the label. Toward realizing that goal, he moved to Munich—a risky decision encouraged by this album’s dedicatory Akis, both affiliated with Osaka’s Interplay8 jazz club. In a categorically unmatched trio with fellow itinerant spirits Walter Lang (piano) and Matthieu Bordenave (tenor saxophone), Fukumori reimagines history as a process of ongoing revision.
Much of that revision is drawn through evocation of Japan’s Shōwa era (1926-89), a time marked by economic collapse on either end, between which unthinkable traumas transitioned into golden-age prosperity. Although his own life overlaps it a mere five years, he understands its nostalgic power as if through firsthand experience, expressed in his introverted approach to virtuosity. Such restraint indicates an artist unafraid to humble himself in silhouette against the movie screen of time on which montages of compassion flicker by. Thus, each tune of Fukumori’s selected corpus extends a narrative devoid of antagonists and bound by regressive politics of interpretation.
During the interwar period (1918-39), a concerted emphasis on delineation and preservation of folk customs infused all aspects of Japanese cultural life, including crafts, farming, and music. And it is perhaps with this timeline in mind that Fukumori begins his artful set with “Hoshi Meguri No Uta” (The Star-Circling Song). Written by literary icon Kenji Miyazawa, its original lyrics depict Polaris guiding readers on a tour of the visible universe. Fukumori likewise takes listeners by the gentlest of hands on a journey through bygone eras, along the way establishing a precedent of communication with his bandmates. In this context, Lang’s lyrical curiosity and Bordenave’s vulnerable yet integral tone are nothing less than the light to his stardust.
By the 1960s, Japan had recovered from World War II and poured renewed effort into rural development as a means of reforming national identity. It was also a time when nihon-chō kayōkyoku, or Japanese-style popular songs, infused public consciousness with their airs of better times. Presciently enough, the solitude and hardship so commonly examined in those songs foreshadowed the bubble whose burst would mark the end of the Shōwa, ushering in an era of hypermodernism and recovery. Before that key transition, however, songwriter Kei Ogura planted his “Ai San San” in the popular imagination. Its evocation of perseverance through rough times gifted an anthem of recovery before one was even needed. Made famous by actress and enka queen Hibari Misora when she released it as a single in 1986, it continues to feel premonition-worthy at a time when we could use a little calm from the storm.
The oldest song here is Rentarō Taki’s “Kōjō No Tsuki” (The Moon Over the Ruined Castle). Written in 1901, it’s a timeless meditation on the fleeting nature of things. As people and their traces come and go, it seems to say, only their love lingers, reflected in the waters of mortality. Jazz aficionados will recognize the tune by way of Thelonious Monk, who arranged his own version as “Japanese Folk Song” on 1967’s Straight, No Chaser. Says Fukumori of the version at hand: “Every Japanese child learns this song at school. The melody of the song is very Japanese, so it stands out and still sounds very authentic even though I have re-harmonized it and arranged it.” So begins a three-part suite, in which mallets elicit a soft vocabulary from the drums, shifting into pianistic shadow cast by a glowing saxophone before blending into Fukumori’s “The Light.” Like the title track, it showcases his compositional ability to activate dense reactions from delicate chemicals, proving that he and his trio are no strangers to urgency when needed. In that precise regard, the rounded peaks of emotional transference in “Silent Chaos” and “Spectacular” are emblematic of his optimism and gratitude.
All the more reason for listeners to hold in mind the timeline being explored therein. What appears to be another beauty in the form of “Mangetsu No Yube” (Full Moon Night) reveals itself to be a prayerful reaction to tragedy. Composed by Takashi Nakagawa and Hiroshi Yamaguchi in response tothe Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995, it speaks the very language of connection that makes this band so transfixing. Lest we forget the potency of said language, we find two offerings by Lang (“No Goodbye” and “When The Day Is Done”) and one by Bordenave (“Émeraude”). All three are memories folded and unfolded, each more soulful than the last, as part of a collective dream.
It’s impossible to regard Fukumori as anything less than a rightful heir to Paul Motian’s legacy. His attention to detail, unflinching musicality, and penchant for understatement are rare in a musician so young (being 33 at the time of this recording). As when encountering Motian, this is music that demands the night. Anything less than total darkness would obscure its poetry against a market too often shouting with exposition.
Easily among ECM’s finest of the decade. Don’t miss it.
Björn Meyer 6-string electric and acoustic bass guitars
Recorded August 2016, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: September 15, 2017
Björn Meyer is perhaps best known to ECM listeners as bassist for Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin before leaving the band in 2012, and by his appearances on albums of Anouar Brahem, notably 2014’s Souvenance. But the kaleidoscope he has assembled for this 2017 solo album is as surprising as it is fated. Each of its twelve vignettes acts as a window not into but out of Meyer’s singular approach to his six-string electric and acoustic basses. Through their diurnal dialogues, he elicits a sundial’s worth of possible directions, transforming reveries into grounded experiences.
In the opening “Aldebaran,” exquisite suspensions of disbelief bleed into a space where contact of flesh on metal leaves traces of communication, and where the barest whisper of a string is also its credo. Its evocations of wind and water are shared by “Trails Crossing,” which finds Meyer riding a current of arpeggios, which by their changes of direction imply a crossing not only of trails but also of those traveling along them, as if at that meeting point one might witness souls jumping from body to body in search of blessed purpose.
The title track is a spectrum of emotional transference, a series of genetic equations spliced and sequenced into chains of melodic integrity. Here, as elsewhere along the album’s trajectory, tasteful applications of electronic delays and reverb magnify what is already felt spiritually. Where “Pendulum” and “Pulse,” for example, are linked to rhythms of movement, “Garden Of Silence” and “Three Thirteen” achieve their impact through understatement.
Against such fullness of expression, the acoustic bass provides ever-expanding possibilities, spanning the gamut from funky (“Squizzle”) to descriptive (“Merry-Go-Round”) and, when combined with electric (“Dance”), sonic origami in reverse. Just as the electric resonates through harmonic comet tails in “Traces Of A Song,” so does the acoustic seek an origin story to unite them both. And in “Garden Of Silence,” by harpist and singer Asita Hamidi (1961-2012), to whom this album is dedicated, he activates a trail of molecules from instinct to action that by the end leads us back to where we began, hopeful and with all the necessary gear intact.
Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond 