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)

Michael Naura/Wolfgang Schlüter: Country Children (ECM 2305 803 SP)

| Tyran Grillo

Michael Naura
Wolfgang Schlüter
Country Children

Michael Naura piano
Wolfgang Schlüter vibraharp, marimba
Recorded June 1977 at Radio Bremen
Engineer: Dietram Köster
Produced by Peter Schulze

Oftentimes, when pouring through the back catalogue of any label’s out-of-print releases, one stumbles on a few clunkers before arriving at any forgotten monuments. In my listening experiences thus far, ECM has flipped this dynamic considerably, offering a wealth of musical history to explore and appreciate. Among the ruins, however, is this humble little project, lost to the age of the label’s brief SP imprint, which lasted all of three albums. Country Children brings together pianist Michael Naura, whose music graces most of this set, and Wolfgang Schlüter. Originally trained as a drummer before a knee injury led him to mallet instruments, Schlüter cites Lionel Hampton (who he heard live in Berlin in 1952) and Milt Jackson as early influences. After a stint with the Michael Naura Quintet, which dissolved due to Naura’s illness, he played with the NDR Bigband for three decades. Since then, he has focused on teaching and remains one of Germany’s most formative vibraphonists.

“Ballade für eine Silberhochzeit” is a lush opener, almost the shadow of Gershwin’s “Summertime.” Over a beautiful two-chord ostinato, vibes dance exuberantly in a tightly restricted space, but with resplendent melodic freedom. “Schlafen” is a heavily improvised stem with the occasional blossom of composed material. Whereas its heavily convoluted beginnings might elsewhere seem a turgid dream from which one awakens into consonant resolution, here they imply the opposite: an opening of eyes within in sleep’s promised dream. “Take Us Down the River” is more exuberant, much in the vein of Keith Jarrett in the throes of a re-imagined standard. “Argentina” is alive with urban energy, a subdued elegy for remembered villages and mountains. The piano here is paired with a sprightly marimba, making for a drier and more evocative sound.

A flip of the record to Side B brings us to one of the most heartfelt renditions of Krzysztof Komeda’s theme from “Rosemary’s Baby” you are ever likely to hear. This is followed by the title track, which feels steeped in an unnamed nostalgia. “Sad Queen” is another stunner, and my favorite among the album’s originals. “Variation auf »Abendlied«” is dedicated to Peter Rühmkorf, the highly influential German writer whose voice appears alongside Naura and Schlüter in the first two ECM SP titles. It is another lovely offering, consolatory in its gentle persuasion, a track of subtle boisterousness filled with an abiding energy. The final track, “Call,” ends the album on a bittersweet note.

These musicians are like two halves of the same instrument. Their collaborations are beautifully conceived and executed, and make for a fitting complement to such likeminded pairings as Chick Corea and Gary Burton. It’s a wonder this album has yet to be reissued. I would think that, especially with the nod to Komeda, it would fit snugly alongside François Couturier’s Nostalghia and Tomasz Stanko’s Litania. This is a gorgeous and wide-ranging album, one equally fit as the background to other activities or for relaxed deep listening. An unsung gem, and easily one of my top picks currently vying for freedom from the ECM vault.

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)

Kuára at RootsWorld

| Tyran Grillo

My review of ECM’s latest, Kuára, has just recently been published in RootsWorld online magazine. Please click here to read it. And while you’re there, explore RootsWorld’s many fabulous offerings, including other ECM-related reviews and interviews, not to mention a wealth of hidden treasures.

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.

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