ECM Records

Gidon Kremer: Songs of Fate (ECM New Series 2745)

| Tyran Grillo

Gidon Kremer
Songs of Fate

Gidon Kremer violin
Vida Miknevičiūtė soprano
Magdalena Ceple violoncello
Andrei Pushkarev vibraphone
Kremerata Baltica
Weinberg/Kuprevičius
Recorded July 2019
Plokštelių studija, Vilnius
Engineers: Vilius Keras and Aleksandra Kerienė
Šerkšnytė/Jančevskis
Concert recording July 2022
Pfarrkirche, Lockenhaus
Engineer: Peter Laenger
Cover photo: Thomas Wunsch
Album produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: January 19, 2024

The word fate comes from the Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to speak, tell, say.” In its Latinate forms, it took on the nuance of that which was spoken by the divine. Both senses give us doorways into the present disc, in which Gidom Kremer leads his Kremerata Baltica through the works of Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996) by way of living composers from the Baltic states. “This program,” Kremer notes, not coincidentally, “is meant to speak to everybody, reminding us of tragic fates along the way and that we each have a ‘voice’ that deserves to be heard and listened to.” In his brilliant liner notes, Wolfgang Sandner speaks of Kremer as an artist of multiple voices, having a “Jewish first name, German surname, Swedish ancestors, Latvian birthplace, three mother tongues, a love of Russian culture, and an imposed Soviet socialization.” And yet, these categories, he observes, dissolve the moment we utter them, for they are creatively inferior to the music that constantly defines (and redefines) the violinist and conductor’s sense of self.

For the past decade, Kremer has been a fervent champion for Weinberg via ECM (see, most recently, his traversal of the solo violin sonatas). Now, he reveals more obscure works by the Polish composer whose fragmentary yet coherent identity mirrors the interpreter’s own. From the dream-laden Nocturne (1948/49), arranged by Andrei Pushkarev for violin and string orchestra, to the dancing Kujawiak (1952) for violin and orchestra, a tapestry of sounds and textures blesses the ears. Between them are the tempered joys of Aria, op. 9 (1942), for string quartet, and three selections from Jewish Songs, op. 13 (1943), for soprano and string orchestra, on Yiddish poems by Yitskhok Leybush Peretz. The latter, originally published as Children’s Songs to avoid Soviet detection during the war, constitute a moving picture of thought, life, and action translated through the weakness of the flesh. Soprano Vida Miknevičiūtė navigates their pathways—by turns folkish and dramatic—as a needle in the dark.

Giedrius Kuprevičius (*1944) yields an equally substantial sequence bookended by two movements from his chamber symphony, The Star of David. The Postlude thereof is a duet between Miknevičiūtė and Kremer, in which David’s mourning for Saul and Jonathan funnels itself into introspection, connecting and gathering the soul. Between them are two refractions of the Kaddish, or Jewish prayer for the dead. In both, the mood implodes even as the heart struggles to contain every last molecule of sadness.

Before all this, we begin with the tremors of This too shall pass (2021) for violin, violoncello, vibraphone and string orchestra by Raminta Šerkšnytė (*1975). In listening (and we mustlisten) to Kremer’s lone voice emerging from an expanse that threatens to swallow us whole, we find cellist Magdalena Ceple joining not as an ally or hero but as a fellow questioner, one who throws kindling of doubt into the fireplace of mortality. Vibraphonist Andrei Pushkarev speaks of snow at first but soon reveals the language to be that of ice, thin and prone to breaking should one dare to overstep. By the time the orchestra shines its light, Kremer’s recitative has already laid bare the foundations of a story dislocated by memory. The world tries desperately to lock it into place, but it refuses—not through violent resistance but through the peace that comes from knowing who one is.

Concluding this fiercely intimate mosaic is Lignum (2017) by Jēkabs Jančevskis (*1992). Scored for string orchestra, svilpaunieki (ocarinas), chimes and wind chimes, it bids us to listen again, no longer to the instruments themselves but to the materials of which they are made. The violin’s dissonant entrance is the friction of leaves in an orchestral forest. Much like Erkki-Sven Tüür’s architectonics, Jančevskis looks to nature as a source of internal dialogue. As chimes grace our periphery just beyond the treeline, he reminds us that every word lost to the wind has a place to return to.

Sebastian Rochford/Kit Downes: A Short Diary (ECM 2749)

| Tyran Grillo

Sebastian Rochford
Kit Downes
A Short Diary

Seb Rochford composition, drums
Kit Downes piano
Recorded at Waverley, Aberdeen
Recording engineer: Alex Bonney
Mixed by Manfred Eicher
Michael Hinreiner, engineer
Cover photo: Clare Rochford
Album produced by Sebastian Rochford and Manfred Eicher
Release date: January 20, 2023

In 2019, Sebastian Rochford, who previously intersected with ECM on Andy Sheppard’s Trio Libero (2012), Surrounded By Sea (2015), and Romaria (2018), lost his father, Aberdeen poet Gerard Rochford. While mourning, the drummer found himself unable to staunch the melodies welling up from within. Recorded in collaboration with pianist Kit Downes at his childhood home in Scotland, A Short Diary reapproaches that music in dedication to his family and the man whose absence left an unfillable chasm. He then approached producer Manfred Eicher, who mixed and brought the album to fruition.

Despite the heartache that permeates “This Tune Your Ears Will Never Hear,” it opens with bursts of light as if to fight off the darkness of death. This feeling continues throughout, even in titles one might not expect, such as “Night Of Quiet.” Rather than slumbering away peacefully, it sits lucidly awake, opening the curtain of memory to reveal the sunlit scenes of “Love You Grampa,” wherein a tender nostalgia takes over, expressed in interlocking pianism and sewn by needle (snare) and threads (cymbals). Downes opens one photo album after another, discovering as much as Rochford about his history. “Silver Light” is the most poignant, its underlying pulse brushing past as an elusive reflection in the window.

In those asides where Downes is alone (namely, “Communal Decisions” and “Our Time Is Still”), the walls of the room close in. Like a mobile turning above a crib by the force of a baby’s breath, he moves in concert with life itself. This feeling is most foregrounded in “Ten Of Us” (a reference to Rochford and his nine siblings). Its slightly dissonant staircase leads us into the attic, drawn to the histories buried in its chests of toys, boxes of old books, and piles of clothes. Trying his best not to unsettle the dust with his footfalls, Rochford builds a gentle yet mountingly declarative hymn of survival.

Everything funnels into “Even Now I Think Of Her.” Rochford explains: “It’s a tune my dad had sung into his phone and sent me. I forwarded this to Kit. He listened, and then we started.” This swing hangs from a tree, overlooking a windswept field as the last remnant of green after cataclysm. It weeps, closing hands around nothing notions of what could have been. Thus baptized by mortality, lowered into a font of stillness, it gives up the ghost and shreds the present into countless pieces.

Throughout A Short Diary, each note births the possibility of others waiting to be heard. As one of the most touching recordings to come out on ECM this century, it is pure, sonic humanity. Despite (if not because of) being so personal, I dare say you could pull on any thread sticking out from it and find one in your own heart that matches.

Anja Lechner: BACH/ABEL/HUME (ECM New Series 2806)

| Tyran Grillo

Anja Lechner
BACH/ABEL/HUME

Anja Lechner violoncello
Recorded May 2023, Himmelfahrtskirche, Munich
Engineer: Peter Laenger
Cover photo: Sam Harfouche
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: October 18, 2024

A solo program is never a solitary endeavor. While it may nominally include a lone performer—in this case, cellist Anja Lechner, in her first such recording—it is ultimately a conversation with the music, engineer, producer, and oneself. And in the trifecta of composers assembled here, we are included in that conversation. Throughout the opening swoon of A Question, one among a handful from former Scottish mercenary Tobias Hume (c. 1579-1645), and its companion piece, An Answer, the beginning and the ending become indistinguishable. (I also like to think that the answer comes unintentionally in the snatch of bird song heard at the end of the latter track.) Harke, Harke features pizzicato colorations and bow tapping—and may, in fact, be the first score to feature a col legno instruction—for delectable contrast. These pieces are from Hume’s 1605 collection of dances and miniatures, “The First Part of Ayres,” welcoming us into a sound-world that begs uninterrupted listening.

German pre-Classicalist Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787), another viol master who returned to the form a century and a half later, yields two vignettes in d minor. Where his Arpeggio is an enchantment, shining across the strings in refracted sunrise, the Adagio is a piece of paper blown down a cobbled street by the wind of an oncoming storm.

Against this backdrop, the Cello Suite No. 1 of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is a piece of a fallen star. In the Prélude, there is enough shadow to remind us that even the most joyful discoveries depend on sorrows, rendering their contours all the more pleasurable to behold. Lechner wields her bow as the weaver does a shuttle. From where she sits, the frays of the tapestry’s backside are within reach, while from our perspective, it is richly and coherently patterned. As the Allemande shapes the clouds and sky, the Courante and Sarabande populate the valley below with equal measures of vibrance and infirmity. In the Menuet, we encounter the tinge of old age, where eyes still sparkle with the naivety of youth even as they are tempered by the cataracts of regret. The final Gigue frees the soul from its cage.

Given how heartfully Lechner renders all of this, moment by precious moment, how can one not reflect upon her spirit of exploration and improvisation through a career as varied as her repertoire? We are all the more blessed by her ability to pull life from her instrument as one draws water from a well. Like the composer himself, even when repeating the same format in the Cello Suite No. 2, she holds the power of variation incarnate. This Prélude is a drop of ink preserved in water, holding its color and identity no matter how much the Allemande may jostle it. Lechner maintains a level voice, holding firm to the horizon so that the occasional flight toward the sun or dive toward the ocean floor feels all the more novel. In that sense, the Courante is as vivacious as the Sarabande is funereal, each a stage setter for the final footwork.

Further aphorisms from Hume, each addressing a different facet of the human condition, conclude the recital. By turns playful and sensual, they delight with such titles as Hit It In The Middle and Touch Me Lightly. The strongest musculature is reserved for A Polish Ayre, which reminds us of just how physical the cello can be. Throughout these interpretations, Lechner is ever the shaft of light to its prism, splitting a spectrum of mastery that can only flourish behind closed eyes. The result is an act of great intimacy built over years of trust with ECM and its listeners, giving her soil to plant a variegated garden of nourishment. She has the dirt under her nails to prove it. Let the water of our high regard be its rain.

Evgueni Galperine: Theory of Becoming (ECM New Series 2744)

| Tyran Grillo

Evgueni Galperine
Theory of Becoming

Evgueni Galperine electronics, sampling
Sergei Nakariakov trumpet
Sébastien Hurtaud violoncello
Maria Vasyukova voice
Recorded 2021/21, Studio EGP, Paris
Engineer: Aymeric Létoquart
Mixed November 2021, Les Studios de la Seine, Paris
by Evgueni Galperine, Manfred Eicher, and Aymeric Létoquart
Cover painting: Lorenzo Recio
Album produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: October 21, 2022

If a composer is an author, then Evgueni Galperine is one who allows characters, actions, and places to speak themselves into logical corners, then breaks those corners to let the vacuum of space have a say. Based in Paris since 1990, the Russian/Ukrainian composer cites the language of cinema as his creative crucible. His first project in that regard was Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless, a soundtrack he wrote sight unseen. (ECM listeners may remember another Zvyagintsev film, The Return, and its music by Andrey Dergatchev.) In the present program, Galperine tears his mise-en-scène from the pages of life itself. Whether reworking prerecorded material or responding to instruments in the moment, this “augmented reality of acoustic instruments” connects events of importance in his life. Aided by the contributions of Sergei Nakariakov (trumpet), Sébastien Hurtaud (cello), and Maria Vasyukova (voice), he breaks the electro-acoustic mold as he defines it, careful not to step on any shards left by the process to regard the partial reflections they offer.

Much of the work is personal, giving us glimpses into the experiences that have shaped his movements in the world. The most poignant is “This Town Will Burn Before Dawn,” for which Galperine imagined himself combing through the rubble of a destroyed futuristic city. “This simple idea took on a whole new meaning with the invasion of Ukraine,” he says, “the land of my father and of my childhood.” And while hope is found, it is unreachable. A cello stretches its arms but finds no contact in return, only an imagining of light amid ringing bells. Like “Soudain, le vide” later in the album, it is a requiem as much for the living as the dead. The flesh, it seems to whisper, is inseparable from shadow. “Oumuamua, Space Wanderings” is a more ambitious but no less intimate self-examination. Inspired by the oblong asteroid that enchanted the world with possibilities of interstellar contact in 2017, it writes its origin story with a Jon Hassell-esque morphology, nestled in an overlay of bright digital signatures and a seeking spirit.

With other influences ranging from Claude Debussy and Dmitri Shostakovich to György Ligeti and Arvo Pärt, a listening mind is clearly at work. Having such a list at hand prompts me to seek other paths of connection. The bellowing of low horns in “Cold Front” evokes the dawn-kissed expanse of Hans Zimmer, while the trumpet of “After The Storm” exhales like the foggy tropes of Ingram Marshall. To be sure, the high strings and beautiful dreams of “La lettre d’un disparu” make for an easy parallel with Pärt’s Tabula rasa. But they also bring me back to my first encounter with Three Pieces in the Olden Style by Henryk Górecki. If anything, my deep kinship with the Polish composer’s broad oeuvre rings truest for me throughout Theory of Becoming. I feel it in the translucent veil of “Kaddish” and the unrelenting textures of “The Wheel Has Come Full Circle”—not simply in terms of structure but in Galperine’s sense of time. It’s like he stretched out Old Polish Music thin enough to see the sun through without letting it rip, giving us a diffuse lens through which to regard the precariousness of our existence.

Even when the inspirations are of a more imaginative persuasion, they feel no less real. A childlike wonder reigns supreme in “Don’t Tell.” This melange of whistling, percussive clicks, trembling strings, and celesta is a record spinning backward. It cradles a flute like a newborn sibling, ending in a unified song of well-being. Lastly, “Loplop im Wald” refers to the magical bird solely capable of traversing Max Ernst’s mysterious painted forests. Tenser and moonlit, its Morse code trails ever outward into a calling of escape, hoping nature won’t come crashing down on itself before the journey can be completed.

With such a profoundly familiar sense of imagination to regard, we are left with only ourselves as companions, conversing until we implode as sound itself.

Wolfert Brederode: Ruins and Remains (ECM 2734)

| Tyran Grillo

Wolfert Brederode
Ruins and Remains

Wolfert Brederode piano
Matangi Quartet
Maria-Paula Majoor violin
Daniel Torrico Menacho violin
Karsten Kleijer viola
Arno van der Vuurst violoncello
Joost Lijbaart drums, percussion
Recorded August 2021 at Sendesaal, Bremen
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Cover: Mayo Bucher
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: September 23, 2022

For his fourth ECM album as leader, Wolfert Brederode returns with Ruins and Remains. This suite for piano, string quartet, and percussion, the result of a commission marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, telescopes the seemingly insurmountable distance between horror and hope.

While such a backstory might seem a pivot for the Dutch pianist, thematic connections are drawable to his past work. From the association-rich wanderings of Currents to the patient grooves of Black Ice, he has consistently demonstrated an awareness of time as a physical substance. In Post Scriptum between them, he was already exploring suite-like structures around questions of the human condition.

The present record takes elements from all that came before and bonds them with something so intangible that only a microphone can capture and amplify it: history. To that end, he ticks our path with four signposts entitled “Ruins.” With their cold expanse and cautious navigations, they trace the movements of those who have fallen in places where hands cannot reach and only the heart may tread.

In “Swallow,” Brederode and his fellow musicians sift through the rubble for something salvageable: a ring, a photograph, perhaps a gold-capped tooth that once served as a runway for speech. The Matangi Quartet speaks in the language of the past, dreaming of better times when violence was something one only read about in storybooks. Meanwhile, percussionist Joost Lijbaart reveals glints of the future. Along the way, Brederode emotes very much in the present, holding close to lessons on the verge of fading. With these in mind, titles like “Cloudless” and “Dissolve” feel as much like descriptors of what we hear as what they evoke. The resonance of these passages tells stories in which we can have no part, each walking a bridge that must collapse. In this regard, “Retrouvailles” comes across as a false promise, a moment in time expanded to show the scars it would otherwise gloss over.

Although musical details rise into prominence, including the plucked piano strings of “Ka,” the rolling snare of “Nothing for Granted,” and the cello’s sagacious presence across the waves, a holistic mise-en-scène pervades. Like the blush of “Duhra,” it strikes a glow where mostly darkness has taken hold, a film without a screen.

The music’s openness to change is part of what makes it real. As death becomes written and rewritten, our souls adapt to its language. And as it heeds the horizon’s beckoning, we are given a choice: follow or turn away.

Dominic Miller: Vagabond (ECM 2704)

| Tyran Grillo

Dominic Miller
Vagabond

Dominic Miller guitar
Jacob Karlzon piano, keyboard
Nicolas Fiszman bass
Ziv Ravitz drums
Recorded April 2021 at Studio La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard
Cover photo: Fotini Potamia
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: April 21, 2023

For his third ECM outing, guitarist Dominic Miller brings quiet ferocity and lyrical precision to this quartet setting with pianist Jacob Karlzon, bassist Nicolas Fiszman, and drummer Ziv Ravitz, opening our ears to newer and even deeper terrains across a set of eight original itineraries.

In a statement for the album’s press release, he says, “Thanks to the amazing singers I’ve worked with over the years, I see myself more as an instrumental songwriter. And as they do, I see it my mission to surround myself with the best musicians who understand the narratives in the ‘songs.’ I’m happy to have assembled the right lineup here with Vagabond.” And in “All Change,” we hear that ethos played out. The rhythm section opens itself to Miller’s acoustic timekeeping while the piano smoothes the waters to ensure this vessel sails uninterrupted until it reaches its first port of call. Miller’s overlay brings fresh intimacy, capturing frames of a stop-motion memory.

Across the cinematic horizon of “Cruel But Fair,” an underlying breath of synthesizer kindles the hearth of Miller’s acoustic. A collective atmosphere reigns supreme, each musician contributing to a scene as it curls into shape around people, places, and things. Such associations collaborate in the music as much as those assembled in the studio to articulate them. Miller himself points to southern France, which he has called home in recent years, for inspiration. Whereas “Vaugines” refers to a small village he has frequented on his walks, “Clandestin” is a hidden bar where stories abound. The latter’s interplay reveals the most space between instruments, allowing for an unguarded swagger. To my ears, it feels anything but covert.

Such is the ability of Vagabond to open its borders to our psychological refugees. For example, while “Open Heart” is easily interpreted as an image of generosity, to me, it evokes the darkly inward period I faced when my father suffered a nearly fatal heart attack in December of 2023 (the main reason why I’ve posted so little since then). All the more fitting, then, that Miller should include an ode to his own father, “Mi Viejo,” an unaccompanied offering of intimate magnitude.

The delicacy of this music is also its strength. A case in point is “Altea,” the airy underpinnings of which give the trio plenty of fertilizer to work into the soil. What grows from it is lush yet variegated enough to let those precious rays of sunlight through. Lastly, “Lone Waltz” moves from stasis to momentum. Like a boat chasing the setting sun, it finds solace in the waves.

If we started with the notion of having to get somewhere, we end without quite knowing where that might be.

Heinz Holliger/Anton Kernjak: Éventail (ECM New Series 2694)

| Tyran Grillo

Heinz Holliger
Anton Kernjak
Éventail

Heinz Holliger oboe, oboe d’amore
Anton Kernjak piano
Alice Belugou harp
Recorded October 2021 at Radiostudio Zürich
Engineer: Andreas Werner
Cover: Fidel Sclavo
Co-production ECM Records / Radio SRF 2 Kultur
Release date: September 22, 2023

Dear dreamer, help me to take off
Into my pathless, pure delight
By always holding in your glove
My wing, a thin pretence of flight.

The vocalise is a form that, by modern definition, refers to a singing exercise focusing on melody over meaning. If it begs the need for words, it is only because we are accustomed to the notion that songs require them. In this instrumental program, oboist Heinz Holliger deconstructs the concept and reassembles it with apocryphal gems and other building materials from the 20th century. Pianist Anton Kernjak (last heard on Holliger’s Aschenmusik) leads as much as he follows in their co-search for lyrical forms.

It is Kernjak who introduces us to a forest of snow-covered trees in Maurice Ravel’s Pièce en forme de Habanera (1907). Holliger’s oboe is the wanderer who sings only when no one else is around, leaving behind a trail of crumbs not to be found but in the hopes they will bear fruit come spring. Thus, we are shown a way forward. The Sonate op. 166 (1921) of Camille Saint-Saëns, one of his last pieces, cuts across the grain of Romanticism with blades of light. From measured frolic to a march across time, it might just be his truer swan song.

A freshness as of twilight brushes
Against you as you flutter me,
And each imprisoned wing-beat pushes
Back the horizon tenderly.

From André Jolivet, who Holliger cites as the genuine successor to Edgar Varèse, we get the mysterious Controversia (1968). Originally dedicated to Heinz and Ursula Holliger, it replaces the latter with Alice Belugou on the harp. The relationship between the two instruments is one of tension without release. The oboe trembles, and the harp writhes, their dance a language unto itself. Belugou’s harmonics point toward points of starlight, while the double reed takes solace in tracing them for want of images. Holliger’s tone is unparalleled; his window racks but never shatters, offering a kaleidoscopic point of view.

It’s dizzying: shivers run through space
Like an enormous kiss, which, mad
At being born for no one’s face,
Can not discharge, nor yet subside.

The Vocalise-Étude (1935) of Olivier Messiaen offers yet another perspective. Holliger once played it in the composer’s presence while rehearsing for a performance of Des canyons aux étoiles he was to conduct. As the story goes, Messiaen’s enthusiasm led him to include it in the Concert à quatre, dedicated to Holliger, Yvonne Loriot, Catherine Cantin, Myung-Whun Chung, and Mstislav Rostropovich. As magical as it is brief, it breathes alongside the Morceau de lecture(1942), an etude for the oboe sight-reading exam at the Conservatoire National de Paris later expanded upon in the song cycle Harawi (“L’Amour de Piroutcha”).

Ravel’s Kaddisch (1914), from Deux mélodies hébraïques, sets the Jewish prayer for the dead. Although it wears a shawl to cover the eyes and mouth, it grasps delicately at light. Its companion is the Vocalise-Étude «Air» op. 105. Written in 1928 by Darius Milhaud, a student of Charles Koechlin, it is a veritable haiku.

Don’t you feel heaven is shy? It slips,
Blushing, a piece of laughter stifled,
Down by the corner of your lips
To hide in my concerted fold.

Syrinx (1913) by Claude Debussy takes on a new guise here. Originally a flute solo, it no longer feels “incidental” (as it was originally played off stage as an interval to a stage production) and dances on its own terms. Holliger chooses the oboe d’amore for this interpretation, as he also does for Koechlin’s Le repos de Tityre op. 216/10 (1948). If one is bone, the other is flesh. Following this dyad are further vignettes by Jolivet, Debussy, and Saint-Saëns, whose Le rossignol (1892)—quoted in the second movement of the late oboe sonata heard earlier—carves its own vessel.

This sceptre rules the banks of rose
And pools of evening’s golden mire,
This flying whiteness that you close
And land beside a bracelet’s fire.

Holliger and Kernjak save the best for last in the Sonate op. 23 (1936) of Robert Casadesus. Better known as a pianist, he remains lesser known as the fairly prolific torch bearer of Fauré and Ravel that he was. As Holliger recounts in the liner notes, he received this hidden treasure in autograph copy form from his teacher, Émile Cassagnaud. Though now in print, it is rarely performed. The piano writing alone is astounding. Airy in feel yet overflowing with imagery, it leans into jazz without ever losing its footing. From the cinematic middle movement to the rousing Allegro vivo that finishes, one cannot help but feel a new emotional horizon being drawn.

Incidentally, the album’s title comes from the poem “Another Fan” (Autre Éventail) by Stéphane Mallarmé, interspersed throughout this review. Like the spines that give the object its shape, these carefully chosen pieces allow the musicians to stretch their projection screens, each the first frame of a biography yet to be told.

Benjamin Lackner: Last Decade (ECM 2736)

| Tyran Grillo

Benjamin Lackner
Last Decade

Benjamin Lackner piano
Mathias Eick trumpet
Jérôme Regard double bass
Manu Katché drums
Recorded September 2021 at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard
Cover photo: Woong Chul An
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: October 14, 2022

Benjamin Lackner makes a soft yet profound splash on Last Decade, his ECM debut. With Mathias Eick on trumpet, Jérôme Regard on bass, and Manu Katché on drums, the German-American pianist lays the groundwork for a quartet of wide imagination, forging a new relationship that is sure to grow over the next decade.

Lackner’s compositions are fertile ground for his bandmates. “Where Do We Go From Here” plants rows of seeds from the start, watering them in the same breath. Eick’s lyricism is given plenty of breathing room while the rhythm section snakes its way along like a shadow over rock and river. This mood (and mode) will be familiar to many ECM listeners, taking two steps inward for each outward.

But then, something happens as Katché’s groove in “Circular Confidence” opens up a much wider vista. Trading introspection for charity, it imbues Regard’s bassing with a lithe spirit as Lackner flips the landscape like the page of a book to reveal side quests galore. Foremost among them in Eick’s sojourn into distant cities and towns. Rather than bring us souvenirs, he returns with a travelogue. More tractions await in the enigmatically titled “Hung Up On That Ghost,” wherein Katché and Regard tessellate with unforced enchantment. Lackner and Eick give faith to form, the latter’s wordless vocals emblematic of a larger unity at play.

Although Lackner is more accustomed to solo and trio settings, Eick keeps in step as a natural ally. Lifting and lowering throughout “Camino Cielo,” he paints their relationship in streaks of gold and silver, his light as much a partner in the music as what is obscured by proxy. The title track is another collective journey marked by subtly daring harmonies and family memories. So, too, is the closing “My People.” Its staggered 11/4 time signature gives the listener plenty to meditate on.

Between them are three briefer excursions. Whereas “Remember This” is for the trio alone and finds Katché exchanging delicacies, “Open Minds Lost” offers the band’s fullest statement. All that remains is “Émile,” a freely improvised solo from Regard named after his son. Like the album as a whole, it pulls at the threads of life and weaves from them a tapestry of stories to be preserved for those who will outlive us.

Jakob Bro: Taking Turns (ECM 2543)

| Tyran Grillo

Jakob Bro
Taking Turns

Lee Konitz alto and soprano saxophones
Bill Frisell guitar
Jakob Bro guitar
Jason Moran piano
Thomas Morgan double bass
Andrew Cyrille drums
Recorded March 2014 at Avatar Studios, NY
Engineer: James A. Farber
Mixed August 2024
by Thomas Vang (engineer) and Jakob Bro
at The Village Recording Studio, Copenhagen
Cover design: Sascha Kleis
Album produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: November 29, 2024

When I put this album into my computer, iTunes mistakenly named it “Exuding.” Then again, maybe the algorithm was trying to tell me something. As introspective as the music of Jakob Bro is often thought to be, it also chambers a creative fire that indeed exudes waves of inspiration. In this Copenhagen session, recorded in 2014 but given to the world a decade later, we encounter Bro in a mode of fearless exploration whereby coal is compressed into raw diamonds. Joining him are guitarist Bill Frisell, pianist Jason Moran, bassist Thomas Morgan, and drummer Andrew Cyrille.

At this point, except for Moran, Bro had shared a stage and/or studio with all the musicians gathered here. For example, his association with Lee Konitz goes back to 2008, when Paul Motian recommended that the two collaborate. And yet, as most under-the-skin jazz usually does, the all-original set glistens with the first-time-ness of its possibilities, especially given its delayed release. 

From the initial stirrings of “Black Is All Colors At Once,” it’s obvious that the notion of taking turns is subjective and at the whim of every moment. Its airy yet substantial sound takes an inch of history and gives a pound of cure, hiding its soul in places light cannot reach. If Konitz is a voice to be heard here, how much more so in his rare turn on soprano in “Haiti.” Alongside Cyrille’s cinematic cymbals and Bro and Frisell’s dialogism, there’s plenty of sun to go around.

“Milford Sound” is the band’s dreamiest calling card. The title, which references both Milford Graves and a fjord in New Zealand’s South Island, proves a revelatory beacon for Moran, who finds his stride band like a sole to its shoe. The unforced language of the guitars questions as much as it answers, Morgan and Cyrille trading periods and commas with perfect fluency all the while. Other reference points include New York’s Chinatown in “Pearl River” and memories of Argentina in “Mar Del Plata.”

The music also invites us to make our own associations. When listening to “Aarhus,” for example, I cannot help but remember my time in the city’s ARoS art museum. One note, and I am back strolling through its rainbow-colored rotunda, starting in the deepest reds and working toward indigo. Meanwhile, “Peninsula” suggests the liminal geographies that so often attract me, eschewing groove in favor of what speaks clearly enough through flow and circumstance.

These are travelers who have circled the world (and then some) whose paths have not only crossed here but become one for a while. How privileged that we should be invited to join them on this leg of the journey.