Jazz

Keith Jarrett Trio: Inside Out (ECM 1780)

| Tyran Grillo

Inisde Out

Keith Jarrett Trio
Inside Out

Keith Jarrett piano
Gary Peacock double-bass
Jack DeJohnette drums
Recorded July 26 and 28, 2000 at Royal Festival Hall, London
Engineer: Martin Pearson
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Of his approach to this 2001 album, recorded live the year before in London, pianist Keith Jarrett says, “Don’t ask. Don’t think. Don’t anticipate. Just participate.” Where for so long he and his partners Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette had served up piping hot new takes on old recipes, here they decided to do away with all that and, with the exception of their version of the evergreen “When I Fall In Love” that concludes, let the music create itself. What in others’ hands would have been a risky venture turns into a balanced, intuitive record from these most capable sound-smiths.

Jarrett, Peacock, and DeJohnette are undoubtedly masters of their craft, but each album has tended to highlight the skills of one over the others. In this case, DeJohnette is the trio’s North Star. He breaks in the stage like a good pair of shoes, making oil from grit and smoothing the way for Jarrett’s spontaneous fountains at every turn. With a freshness that recalls his Special Edition days, he emboldens the tessellated “From The Body” in such a way that Jarrett’s freestyle analyses can shed fullest sunlight on the unfolding story. Of that story, we get floods of exposition in a sandwich of registers. Peacock muscles his way through with a twangy abandon that characterizes so much of his playing from the period, leaving at the bottom of this crucible a pianism so angelic that it pulls itself skyward until it reaches the beginning of itself.

DeJohnette unpacks further brilliance in the equally jagged title track, which along with the first starts big and works down to the finer core before rebuilding from that core something new and glorious. His powerful brushwork and meditative swing treats every strand as if it were a means to an end and leaves Jarrett to explore their finer implications in a bluesy afterglow. The latter’s right hand has a mind of its own as it skips its way across the keyboard. “341 Free Fade” opens with tantalizing string games from Peacock, bringing back the trio’s tried and true formula of building molecules from atoms. DeJohnette delights yet again, his hi-hat carrying a heavy load into outer space as he tinkers gorgeously around the halo of its kit. And after leading the way through the foot-stomping ritual that is “Riot,” he opens the pathway to genius with his cymbals in “When I Fall In Love.” By means of barest whisper, he stargazes, trusting life’s stresses to Jarrett’s hands and setting them to fly like pieces of paper above a campfire—glowing as they rise, turning into patches of night, indistinguishable from the rest.

Inside Out is unafraid to live up to its title. Although on the surface it seems more abstract than might a typical standards outing, you may just find yourself lulled by its inherent, not to mention accessible, profundity. Were the album a genetic experiment, each track would be a kink in the DNA helix that makes its bearer unique.

<< Heiner Goebbels: Eislermaterial (ECM 1779 NS)
>> Gideon Lewensohn: Odradek (ECM 1781 NS)

Misha Alperin: Night (ECM 1769)

| Tyran Grillo

Night

Misha Alperin
Night

Anja Lechner cello
Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen percussion, marimba, voice
Misha Alperin piano, claviola
Recorded April 4, 1998 at Vossa Jazz Festival, Norway
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Atmospherically speaking, Misha Alperin has created some of ECM’s most haunting discs. In the wake of one such disc, At Home, the Ukrainian pianist-composer surprises with yet another unexpected turn of events. The event in question is the commissioned performance at the 1998 VossaJazz Festival in Norway documented here. The end result is a new beginning, a flowering of innovation and sensory breadth.

With German cellist Anja Lechner and Norwegian percussionist Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen in tow, Alperin’s keys open the curtain with “Tuesday,” and in that Everest shape reveal the touch of two bows: one at Lechner’s strings, the other humming along the edge of Sørensen’s cymbals. As the trio settles into a spiral of sleep, regularities begin to emerge. Thus welcomed into the performance, one can note the figural language that is Alperin’s forte. His body arches, conforms to what is being played. His physicality comes out especially in “Tango,” which fronts his sweet descriptions before delicate snare rolls and legato support from Lechner, the latter switching to pizzicato to buoy every footnote. After a duet between Lechner and Alperin (the tender “Adagio,” which absorbs breath in lieu of exhale), the dotted marimba of “Second Game” counters with some delightful surprises. From the persuasive beauty of its Steve Reichean introduction to jocular turns and thematic quick-changes that recall The Carnival of the Animals of Saint-Saëns, it encompasses a thousand positive memories. These render the quiet spirit of “Dark Drops” all the subtler. The title track is evocation par excellence, weaving cricketing percussion through a loom of moonlight. Timpani and strained vocals make for some unusual effects in “Heavy Hour,” a ritual thesis of howling abandon. The suite concludes with “Far, Far…,” which carries us beyond the implied “away” to a place where lullabies alter the sky as would a luthier achieve a perfect curve of tiger maple.

Night is a topographical palate. From hills to caves, cliffs and open fields, it is a regression to the womb, a reverie of cloud-shift and prenatal lightning. Like etcher’s acid, it renders its images in reverse, righted when printed on the mind.

<< Misha Alperin: At Home (ECM 1768)
>> John Abercrombie: Cat ‘n’ Mouse (ECM 1770)

Misha Alperin: At Home (ECM 1768)

| Tyran Grillo

At Home

Misha Alperin
At Home

Misha Alperin piano
Recorded at home by Misha Alperin, February 1998
Edited and mastered at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Album produced by Manfred Eicher

Misha Alperin has been something of a shadowy presence in the annals of ECM. His previous albums—namely, Wave Of Sorrow, North Story, and First Impression—marked him as an enigmatic musician of sparse yet effective language, at times of humor and gaiety. But if you want to know how the Ukrainian-born pianist’s heart beats, the forms his dreams take, let At Home be your looking glass. The aching lyricism of the title track, which opens this collection of improvised pieces, is all you need to know what’s going on: a private, reflective session surrounded by Alperin’s most familiar things. Recorded at his home in Norway, where he has lived for the past two decades, the program unfolds in a mosaic portrait of the artist in various stages of emotional awareness.

Remarkable about this album (and true also of Keith Jarrett’s Facing You) are the levels of evocation sustained throughout. It’s as if Alperin were letting himself fall and trusting in the piano strings to catch him in their net. It is inspiring to experience such breaking down of hesitations—to feel, for example, the subterranean forces of “Nightfall” digging so deep it almost hurts to imagine their visceral impact. In “Shadows” Alperin makes use of space as a brush artist would of ink, expressing much with little. Intermittent clusters and arpeggiated phrases share the piano’s natural resonance, stretching phonemes into the speech of “10th of February.” It is the album’s most figural piece, contrasting a circular left hand with a circling right: a night flight of unfathomable scope in under five minutes. Behind the winged structures of “The Wind” thrive unlived pasts, histories beyond the ken of the hermetic performer at the keyboard, lives whose implications are decades yet in knowing.

The album is not without its whimsy. A Norwegian folk dance provides the inspiration for “Halling,” which might have felt out of place in the program were it not for the integrity of its spirit. “Light” and “Game” bring further playfulness to the fore, in the former offsetting potentially ominous chords and in the latter rummaging through a toy chest of childhood relics. With these Alperin creates sparkling vignettes, one after another, until the outtake of “Njet” chambers the parent calling to the child, the husband to the partner, flowing down the hallways into light.

<< Giya Kancheli: In l’istesso tempo (ECM 1767 NS)
>> Misha Alperin: Night (ECM 1769)

Susanne Abbuehl: April (ECM 1766)

| Tyran Grillo

April

Susanne Abbuehl
April

Susanne Abbuehl voice
Wolfert Brederode piano, harmonium, melodica
Christof May clarinet, bass clarinet
Samuel Rohrer drums, percussion
Recorded November 2000 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
This quiet, persistent rain.
–Robert Creeley (1926-2005)

The ECM debut of Susanne Abbuehl is a verdant introductory résumé for which the Swiss singer-composer presents settings of poems by e. e. cummings and sets her own to the music of Carla Bley. Abbuehl comes from a long line of idiosyncratic chanteuses to have passed through ECM’s hallowed halls—including Sidsel Endresen, Norma Winstone, and Annette Peacock—and has left behind a veritable wing of artwork to admire at length. April carves out perhaps the most distinct of these exhibitions, and with “yes is a pleasant country” introduces us not only to her nesting textu(r)al approach, but also to the poetry of her synergistic band. Pianist Wolfert Brederode (who has since gone on to record leader dates for ECM), drummer Samuel Rohrer (also of Brederode’s quartet), and clarinetist Christof May together grow, needle by needle, the Christmas tree from which Abbuehl hangs her vocal ornaments. The simpatico between singer and sung is further palpable in her braiding with melodica and clarinet in “all i need,” for which its love guides her indigo words far into the heavens. “skies may be blue” and “yes” form a bonded pair. One is a meditation on spring, the other a field of rolling hills painted in wordcraft. Brederode’s composing and playing are exquisite in “maggie and milly and molly and may,” a litany of fleeting memories in which his pianism overshadows with a vocal quality all its own. The final cummings tribute comes in “since feeling is first.” This Abbuehl sings solo, a tribute to the poet’s later disavowals of punctuation.

Bley’s classic “Ida Lupino” gets a lyrical makeover, bringing out just one of countless stories hidden in its pathways: astute, a touch dark, and emotionally forthcoming. Brederode is something of a sage here, navigating the whimsical images therein: a tiger in the snow, a waning eye, a folding of the self into another’s embrace. “Closer” and “A.I.R. (All India Radio)” pitch more cargo onto the S.S. Bley, set adrift on moonlit waters. Beyond Abbuehl’s “together-colored moment,” precious jewels shine in anticipation. The air is as wistful as one’s naming of it, yet promises eternity in the bass clarinet’s deep pocket. The latter tune processes by virtue of Rohrer’s understated timekeeping. Among the more seamless weddings of voice and music the album has to offer, one can easily get lost in its wordless circumscriptions. (It also foreshadows the album’s closer.) Bley gets one last nod in “Seven,” for which Abbuehl places spoken verse—in her words: petal by petal, yet deeper than all roses—upon the heart’s altar.

Yet there is perhaps nothing so beguiling here than her re-imagining of “’Round Midnight.” Accompanied only by Brederode on harmonium, the tune creeps out from the darkness and shivers the very marrow. “Mane na” concludes the session by paying homage to Abbuehl’s Hindustani vocal training with a raga compressed to the scope of a teardrop.

Although barely acknowledged above, Rohrer’s delicate infusions haunt the landscape throughout, reaching, as Abbuehl recites, “somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond…” In those rhythms is a heart made of pages, thirsty for the next scratch of pen.

An auspicious label debut.

<< Christoph Poppen/The Hilliard Ensemble: Morimur (ECM 1765 NS)
>> Giya Kancheli: In l’istesso tempo (ECM 1767 NS)

Contact Trio: Musik (JAPO 60036)

| Tyran Grillo

Musik

Contact Trio
Musik

Evert Brettschneider electric and acoustic guitars
Aloys Kott electric and acoustic basses
Peter Eisold drums, percussion
Recorded October 1980 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Thomas Stöwsand

Musik was the second effort by the Contact Trio for ECM’s sister JAPO label. Inspired by the atmospheric developments of Wolfgang Dauner (see, for example, Output) and heavily invested in the softening distinctions between rock and jazz, the trio had by now perfected its rhizomatic sound in what was to be its final record. Here Peter Eisold takes the place of drummer Michael Jüllich, and the result is a truly aerobic experience.

The warm-up
The echoing guitar of “Air Lines” opens the session by straddling extremes of register and sharpness, and starts a snowball rolling down the bass’s equally resonant hill. Strangely, the ball doesn’t pick up speed for some time, but paces itself in a journey of textured reflection, tracing from each icy particle a possible trajectory of flight. Eisold’s unique percussive language is thus apparent. And then: traction as the rhythm section hurls the guitar to tell its story in anticipation of an untimely end.

The stretch
Muscles and tendons glow with flexion in “String Games.” Acoustic in hand, Brettschneider reflects on a past in which the only truth was a broken mirror. There is a feeling of dedication here, a deference to time at large for providing this opportunity to luxuriate in the creation of music. Like the first, this track hooks on to something more propulsive in the final minutes, only now running through the backstreets of a small Spanish town, chasing after a melody.

Lower body
“Daddy Longleg” is an invigorating turn featuring two overdubbed electric guitars and electric basses, each relaying torch light in palpitating dialogue with the other. Eisold again shines with colorful cymbal work that evokes nocturnal footfalls in the walls.

Core
From its title alone, “Simple Symphony” would seem to be an allusion to Britten’s work of the same name. The music provides an entirely different experience. From Brettschneider’s throbbing beats and elastic chording to the groovy trio unity achieved thereafter, it climbs every tree in its way like a squirrel on a mission. The rhythm section positively shines in gorgeous geometries, sliding from one signature to the next with the ease and comfort of a fountain pen.

Back
The spine gets is due attention in “Silence,” which curves in a protracted arch. Stained guitar and arco bass lead into a plunking dream of youthful flexibility, edging a ghost town with its metal detector until it finds two rusted guns from a shootout, long forgotten…

Chest and arms
“Elbow Dance” completes this full-body workout with a slog through cement that finds resolution and strange comfort in the hardening.

At the risk of belaboring all of this analogizing, Musik is an intensely physical record. Not only in the sense that it feels weighted and animate, but also for its permeable compositions. Each is a thoughtful assemblage of lines that no longer has need for points of origin. Together, these lines leave the listener with a lasting meta-statement of harmless transgression.

A gem in ECM’s apocryphal bin.

Jiří Stivín/Rudolf Dašek: System Tandem (JAPO 60008)

| Tyran Grillo

System Tandem

System Tandem

Jiří Stivín alto sax, soprano sax, flute, alto flute, recorder
Rudolf Dašek guitar
Recorded May 1974

Jiří Stivín is a true renaissance man. Widely involved as a classical musician in especially early and Baroque music circles, the flutist and composer is also one of the most highly regarded jazzmen of the Czech Republic. The son of an actress and an inventor, he has absorbed both of his parents’ talents, combining their passion for expression and utility in an immediately recognizable style. On System Tandem, he joins guitarist Rudolf Dašek, a partner in crime since 1971. This out-of-print session owes its verve to time spent at London’s Royal Academy of Music, which put Stivín in touch with the exciting jazz-rock fusions proliferating in the late sixties, and found him in the midst of Cornelius Cardew’s legendary Scratch Orchestra. His project with Dašek—probably the most successful jazz outfit to emerge from his homeland—enjoyed great festival circuit success on the continent and abroad. System Tandem came on the heels of a collaboration with bassist Barre Phillips, and the latter’s balance of form and spontaneity is certainly in the air. Dašek, who passed away in 2013 at the age of 79, was another stalwart of the Czech jazz scene known for crossing the genre divide. From his trio with George Mraz and Laco Tropp (among other drummers) to work as soloist before the Prague RSO, his dedication to new music was unflagging. Together, he and Stivín stayed true to that exploratory spirit, working alongside Pierre Favre and Tony Scott, big bands, and countless other configurations.

For its second album (following a debut on RCA Victor in Finland), System Tandem focuses the integrity of the music. Stivín pens the first cut and arranges the second. “Puddle On The Muddle” shows off the duo’s sense of light and shadow in a steely combination of registers. The lively interplay and ping-ponging of ideas allows Stivín to veer down wilder paths of squealing abandon in a robust opening gambit. The Moravian folk song that follows, “Forman Going Down The Valley” is the first of a few pairings of flute and guitar. The theme here is mountainous, painterly, and segues into the album’s remainder, all of which bears Dašek’s stamp. “Hey, Man (Let’s Play Something About Spain)” is the first standout and deepens the fluted streams of its predecessor. Buoyed by echoes of “Hasta Siempre” and quasi-flamenco touches, Stivín jumps into the deep end in another inspired solo turn. He speaks in tongues, becoming more vocal by the moment, for stretches abandoning the flute altogether. “What’s Your Story” mark’s the flute’s last appearance in a forlorn piece of restrained melodic shape. As it progresses, the virtuosity adjusts its sights a few clicks to the left. Stivín breaks out the soprano for “Shepherd Song,” evoking a dance party of undomesticated wildlife. This leaves us with the album’s pièce de résistance, “Puzzle Game.” For this marvelous foray into Baroque territory, Stivín plays a dizzying recorder against an invigorating Django Reinhardt rhythm. Dašek’s finger picking works wonders in the final stretch.

This rare gem is due for reissue not only for its content, but also because the lackluster engineering could do with an overhaul. At many points throughout, the guitar’s audibility is torn to shreds by Stivín’s sharp edges. This is especially true in “Hey, Man” and “What’s Your Story.” It’s as if Dašek were playing with his back to the listener, which makes him feel not so present and obscures his contributions. Thankfully, the recording levels are more graciously tweaked in the final track. Engineering caveats aside, the perks of System Tandem are in its well-muscled compositions. Building enough emotional resonance to undermine the need for a rhythm section is no easy trick for any unconventional duo, but Stivín and Dašek have no problems pulling the rabbit out of the hat.

To all you vinyl collectors, I say: Seek this one out.

Seim/Brække/Johansen: The Source and Different Cikadas (ECM 1764)

| Tyran Grillo

The Source and DIfferent Cikadas

Trygve Seim
Øyvind Brække
Per Oddvar Johansen
The Source and Different Cikadas

Øyvind Brække trombone
Trygve Seim tenor and soprano saxophones, clarophone
Per Oddvar Johansen drums
Henrik Hannisdal violin
Odd Hannisdal violin
Marek Konstantynowicz viola
Morten Hannisdal cello
Frode Haltli accordion
Arve Henriksen trumpet
Christian Wallumrød piano
Finn Guttormsen bass
Recorded November 2000 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Norwegian saxophonist Trygve Seim presents another facet of his musical diamond with the Source, a band he leads with trombonist Oyvind Brække and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen. Notable for bringing together the Cikada Quartet, of which cellist Morten Hannisdal had already played with Seim on Different Rivers and Sangam, and pianist Christian Wallumrød, along with mainstays Arve Henriksen on trumpet and Frode Haltli on accordion, the present session draws out music of a spongier texture, something more prone to dances than to rituals.

The compositional credits are fairly well distributed, with four coming from Seim’s pen. Generally, his are viscous, pathos-rich becomings. “Organismus Vitalis” puts the world under a microscope and revels in all that wriggles in its enlightening circle. In this regard, and by virtue of its floating sensibilities, one might easily connect the dots to Terje Rypdal’s chamber pieces or even to the diffuse scenography of David Darling’s solo ventures—such are its darkly inflected beauties. The Cikadas ebb and keep on ebbing, inching ever closer to shoreline structures as Johansen’s nuanced descriptions ever so barely edge the frame. An auspicious, postludinal beginning to an album of rich variety.

Seim’s thematic voice achieves deeper traction in such tunes as “Bhavana” and “Obecni Dum.” In both, the strings play a vital role in shaping the contexts in which, respectively, saxophone and accordion find purchase. Whether the slide of Seim’s earthy song or the moth-like pursuit of Haltli’s accordioning, there is in all of it something sacred. Even the restless “Fort-Jazz” brings with it a consistency of atmosphere, a fox hibernating in want of rampant spring.

Johansen brings that thaw with three pieces of starkly agitated character. In both “Mmball” and “Deluxe,” his drums are front and center. The latter especially recalls Hal Russell’s exuberant storytelling, all the while heightening the strings’ integration. Bisecting them is “Funebre,” an excerpt from Witold Lutosławski’s 1964 String Quartet that breathes with much the same looseness of structural integrity. This leaves “Uten Forbindelse,” a jazz spring ever on the verge of uncoiling toward infinity. Brække is the clear winner here, spawning as he does an outpouring of spirited exchanges and merging with Seim until the final trill sets them free.

The trombonist, in fact, edges past his co-leaders with five pieces to his name. Brække’s work lies somewhere between that of Seim and Johnansen, balancing the former’s weathered sound with the latter’s spontaneity to varying degrees. Notables include the whimsical “Flipper,” which takes full advantage of the group’s sound colors, and “Plukk,” which charts a subtle interplay of light drumming, pianism, and pizzicato filigree. “Sen Kjellertango” is another eye-opener, a slinky groove anchored by cello and punctuated by soprano saxophone, trumpet, accordion, and drums to dazzling effect.

Two free improvisations round out the set list. Wallumrød and Johansen touch off “Number Eleven” with their patience, overturning stone after stone, until the promise of subterranean force pushes through like a bud. The surrender is tender and blends into surrounding forest like a hunter. “Tutti Free” brings us back to a winter wilderness, dotted by fresh footprints of escape.

Those who enjoyed Bent Sørensen’s Birds and Bells may want to give this one a test spin. The scenography Seim has constructed here is of the highest integrity and practically assures the bending of a curious ear.

<< Alexander Knaifel: Svete Tikhiy (ECM 1763 NS)
>> Christoph Poppen/The Hilliard Ensemble: Morimur (ECM 1765 NS)

Anders Jormin: Xieyi (ECM 1762)

| Tyran Grillo

Xieyi

Anders Jormin
Xieyi

Anders Jormin double-bass
Robin Rydqvist trumpet, flugelhorn
Krister Petersson french horn
Lars-Göran Carlsson trombone
Niclas Rydh bass trombone
Recorded December 17, 1999 at Artisten, Göteborg
Engineer: Johannes Lundberg
Produced by Manfred Eicher

The Chinese title of Anders Jormin’s Xieyi (寫意) means, literally, “to write one’s intentions.” It also names a style of ink painting. Both conceptions—the linguistic and the visual—adequately describe the Swedish bassist’s attempts to sing with his instrument. The result is a session of quiet drama that purges expectations in favor of in-the-moment expressivity. Emerging here on his own after successful ECM tenures with Charles Lloyd, Bobo Stenson, Tomasz Stanko, and Don Cherry, Jormin dips us into a unique world of robust tension, for what began as a solo bass project soon grew, at producer Manfred Eicher’s suggestion, to incorporate morsels for brass quartet. The latter begin, end, and dot the program with cellular interludes, each mobilizing a general reflective theme. These passionate, moveable cores constitute the printing press of all the verbal excursions that occur between them.

The accompanying CD booklet informs us that Xieyi was recorded in one swoop on a rainy December evening. Yet the music is anything but compressed or dank. Rather, it soothes with a warm respect for the many sources recalled at Jormin’s fingertips. From Sibelius to Ornette Coleman and Violetta Parra, Swedish tone poems to children’s songs and improvisations, the sequencing carries us through a globetrotting journey, crystallizing in that single instrument.

Jormin’s unpretentious ability to pluck out the melody behind the melody (listen, for instance, to his harmonic-infused take on Parra’s “Gracias a la vida”) establishes and upholds a strong corporeal presence. Rounded and emotionally descriptive, his musculature acts out every story at hand with interlocking grace. Like teeth biting the edge of a coin, it tests every note for its integrity. At times he folds private shapes from the mind’s origami paper (as in “Idas sommarvisa”), while at others he flings open notions of love like church doors to the world at large. The spontaneous notecraft of tracks such as “Decimas” and “Tenk” further connect ideas by dividing them, thus appreciating their individuality by means of an emerging collective effect. Animated gestures intertwine with winged reciprocation, marking time with glissandi and gaping sluices, through which the trickle of things melodiously passes…

Jormin presents two pieces by composer Stefan Forssén. “Och kanske är det natt” is the album’s most lyrical, a gnarled thing of beauty steeped in nature. “Sonett till Cornelis” is another gem, a recitation of invisible texts. Jormin then pairs his own “Scents” with the ornamental language of “Fragancia” by composer Evert Taube. Its slow trills and deep returns lend plenty of wonder to the scenery. And in that scenery the clearest figure takes shape in the jazz touchstone that is “War Orphans,” realized here with arco brilliance as a dirge of infinite wisdom under the close watch of finitude.

One look at the album’s cover should tell you what this is like: a swath of ever-changing monochrome across which hymns and songs leave their intermittent trail.

<< Harald Bergmann: Scardanelli (ECM 1761 NS)
>> Alexander Knaifel: Svete Tikhiy (ECM 1763 NS)

Larry Karush/Glen Moore: May 24, 1976 (JAPO 60014)

| Tyran Grillo

May 24, 1976

Larry Karush
Glen Moore
May 24, 1976

Larry Karush piano
Glen Moore bass, violin
Recorded May 1976 at Talent Studios, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Bassist and Oregon cofounder Glen Moore joins pianist Larry Karush (who can be found lurking elsewhere on ECM as part of Steve Reich’s ensembles) in a fascinating encounter recorded on the titular date for the JAPO label. Perhaps because the two had already nurtured a deep synergy, what might have been a straight-up duo project instead turned into a spacious and variegated statement. Karush serves up four memorable solo portions, including opener “Untitled.” Balancing cloudy textures with sudden intakes of breath, it leaves only ash to tell of the fire that once burned there. “Transit Boogie,” on the other hand, is a forward-moving piece of ragtime nostalgia that delights in interlocking parts. “Vicissitudes” and “Pamela: At The Hawk’s Well” round out the solo ventures with introspections and intense descriptiveness. Moore’s single lone contribution is “Flagolet,” an overdubbed piece for bowed basses that grinds and twists its own sonic licorice.

“Duet,” the first in a handful of the same, marries these two uncompromising talents in such intuitive ways you’d swear they were separated at birth. Moore’s resonant bassing swims, keens, and prophesies at horsehair’s touch. Like a pinwheel tickled by the fringe of an incoming storm, his energies flourish in a whirl of colors. “Country” finds the bassist leaving deep pizzicato footprints along Karush’s sandy trail. The bluesy serration of this emerging path arcs beautifully into the late-night atmosphere of “Abstinence.” This masterful exchange of air and water finds likeminded release in “Triads,” which concludes with pointillist reflections at the keyboard from behind a David Darling-like gauze. The session’s crowning jewel, however, is “Violin Suite,” which places a smaller bow in Moore’s hands. Its flip-flopping of scratching and melodic itching makes for a sparkling field of contrast that pairs well with the Pifarély/Couturier vintage of Poros.

Sitting at a cerebral interstice between categories, Karush and Moore cover their cardinal bases and then some, leaving us in the end with one of the most wondrous JAPO sessions, period.