ECM Records

Ralph Towner: Works

| Tyran Grillo

Towner

Ralph Towner
Works
Release date: April 1, 1984

Guitarist Ralph Towner, like saxophonist Jan Garbarek (with whom he often collaborated during this formative phase), is one of ECM’s perennial talents and set a precedent for the label unlike any other on Solstice. Over the decades, the 1975 classic has acquired even more integrity than it exhibited when first released. “Oceanus” opens both it and this sensitively curated compilation, combining forces with Eberhard Weber, Jon Christensen, and Garbarek himself. It is perhaps the only logical first step with which to begin any foray into Towner’s universe. Weber’s cello, in combination with his plucked bass backbone, is an enchantment in and of itself, and elevates Towner’s resonating strings to nearly the same level as Garbarek’s tenor. Christensen’s sunlit cymbals complete the image. “Nimbus” finds Towner adding his piano to the mix. A patient intro unleashes the band’s total effect, Weber treading exuberantly across Christensen’s passionate soil.

The second album to be referenced is 1983’s Blue Sun, a solo effort from which two selections are presented. The title track features Towner on piano, Prophet 5 synthesizer, and percussion, alongside his trusted 12-string, for a nostalgic Polaroid that develops before our very ears. This is music that moves us, because it is movement in and of itself. “The Prince And The Sage” recalibrates the array to Prophet 5 and classical guitar only. Tracing a parabola over cities, villages, and waterways, it blends tastefully and in a way that would be unrepeatable with today’s ingredients.

Last we have two tracks from 1979’s Old Friends, New Friends. “New Moon” features Kenny Wheeler (trumpet and flugelhorn), David Darling (cello), Eddie Gomez (bass), and Michael DiPasqua (drums and percussion). If anything, it’s a memorable vehicle for Wheeler, who soars over landless expanse. “Beneath The Evening Sky” makes another reduction, this time to Towner’s 12-string and Darling’s cello. The latter unfolds a string quartet’s worth of backing in this deeply psychological character study.

And while there is some gold unmined in this collection, especially with regard to my all-time favorite Towner album, Solo Concert, there’s enough here to both satiate the hungry ear and inspire exploration for more.

Gary Burton: Works

| Tyran Grillo

Burton

Gary Burton
Works
Release date: April 1, 1984

Vibraphonist Gary Burton, one of the defining voices of ECM’s formative years, is worthily honored in this second “Works” series installment. His contributions as virtuoso and interpreter of the instrument are unparalleled, and on ECM both aspects of his career found ample space in which to flourish. This particular era of the 1970s, which followed his RCA blitz, showed him also to be a musician of great patience, as on The New Quartet. The 1973 classic dropped him into a studio with guitarist Mick Goodrick, bassist Abraham Laboriel, and drummer Harry Blazer for a set as gorgeously played as it was conceived. From it we are treated to Keith Jarrett’s “Coral,” of which every spindly leaf is accounted for, and Carla Bley’s “Olhos De Gato,” which waters a groove that is laid back but never subdued. Those chamber sensibilities give way to more luscious details in “Vox Humana,” another Bley tune that references 1976’s quintet outing, Dreams So Real.

While Burton was quick to expound at length on any given theme, he also gave his bandmates room to breathe. This was especially true of 1974’s Ring, for which the quintet was augmented by bassist Eberhard Weber. From that album we are afforded “Tunnel Of Love.” Burton’s pitch-bending adds a degree of physicality to this nostalgic slice of life by Michael Gibbs. The third of 1974’s Seven Songs For Quartet And Chamber Orchestra is another master class in delayed gratification and defers to the bassing of Steve Swallow.

The remainder of this compilation features the deeper integrations of Burton’s duo projects. His highest achievement in this regard, 1973’s Crystal Silence, pairs him with pianist Chick Corea. The track chosen to represent it, “Desert Air,” is a springboard for some of the most virtuosic finishing of sentences one is likely to encounter in such a collaboration. Another duo project with Ralph Towner, 1975’s Matchbook, yields the title track, in which percussive impulses from the guitarist clear the road for an unimpeded ride over flatlands. And on “Chelsea Bells” and “Domino Biscuit” (Hotel Hello, 1975), both by Swallow, the composer joins Burton on piano with touches both anthemic and gospel-esque. All of which leaves us with an abridged version of an oeuvre steeped in timeless energy. A gift that keeps on giving, decades later.

Jan Garbarek: Works

| Tyran Grillo

Garbarek

Jan Garbarek
Works
Release date: April 1, 1984

The “Works” series of ECM compilations began in 1984 to celebrate the label’s 15th anniversary, as it prepared to open a new chapter with its classically focused New Series imprint later that same year. It makes sense that Norwegian saxophonist and composer Jan Garbarek should be the subject of this first installment, as he defined not only the sound of ECM throughout the 1970s but also of a jazz scene that was relatively unknown outside its own borders until producer Manfred Eicher committed himself to the vision of broadening its wingspan.

Garbarek has taken on many roles throughout ECM’s now 50-year history, and even at this early stage had defined some key faces of his creative persona. In “Folk Song,” from 1981’s Folk Songs with guitarist Egberto Gismonti and bassist Charlie Haden, we find ourselves in the company of Garbarek the griot. With a telepathy as powerful as that of remembrance, the trio’s music transports us into ourselves. If Haden and Gismonti are shadow and light, respectively, then Garbarek is the one who wanders the valley between them, drawing a horizon wherever the sky will hold pigment. This is the spirit of Garbarek’s playing at all times: an itinerant yet grounded soul who understands the way of things to be carved in experience.

We also encounter Garbarek the sailor. In “Passing” (Places, 1978), he shares a vessel with John Taylor on organ, Bill Connors on guitar, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. With circadian rhythms and steady passage, marked like a fishing net by Connors’s acoustic wisdom, the quartet catches wind purposefully forward. And in “Svevende” (Dansere, 1976), inhaling brine and waves with Bobo Stenson on piano, Palle Danielsson on bass, and Jon Christensen on drums, Garbarek evokes sirens of both the mythical and preventative kind. Another track from Dansere, “Skrik & Hyl,” reveals a shepherd, now climbing a mountain with Danielsson alone. Sounding a call to the ether itself, Garbarek tends to his melodic flock without fear. Responding to said call are Terje Rypdal on guitar, Arild Andersen on bass, and Christensen again on drums in “Beast Of Kommodo” (Afric Pepperbird, 1970). This early build, from ECM’s seventh release, features guttural expression in a tactile setting. And in “Viddene” (Dis, 1977), his soprano meshing with the 12-string guitar of Ralph Towner over a windharp drone, he jumps from the cliff as one who looks down upon landscapes instead of up from them.

Finally, Garbarek the mystic welcomes us into internal spaces. In “Selje” (Triptykon, 1973), he turns to flute in the presence of Andersen, along with Edward Vesala on percussion, for an incantation of light. And in “Snipp, Snapp, Snute” (Eventyr, 1981), his flute is joined by Nana Vasconcelos on percussion, moving with the tide of biographical change.

Throughout these tunes, and regardless of focus, Garbarek activates thoughts of ancestors in the most undeniable terms: through sound. Vibrations thus activate us at the very core, stirring molecules of the heart with messages and songs. And while most compilers might use individual tracks to tell a larger story, Eicher has put together this sequence to show how that larger story feeds the individual.

Keith Jarrett @ 75

| Tyran Grillo

In celebration of Keith Jarrett’s 75th birthday, ECM has gifted listeners with two very special albums. The first is a teaser encore from the upcoming Live from Budapest album, slated for a Fall 2020 release. In anticipation of what is sure to be a worthy live document, we encounter the beautiful suspensions of “Answer Me,” in which Jarrett molds the piano in loving clay.

front-answer-me-keith-jarrett

Despite being recorded not too long ago (July 3, 2016 to be precise), it sings to us from a distance, held up to the ear like a conch shell in which the past of another has been sheltered from the ravages of time. And yet, the more we listen back on these memories, the more they become folded into our own, as if they had been living inside us all along. This is what Jarrett at his best can achieve: whether spontaneously improvising or digging deep into the tried and true, he makes it all feel so inevitable. The music has always been there, waiting to be drawn out by the right pair of hands. And whose hands could be more effective than his to articulate a melody in the language of sunlight through breeze-shaken leaves.

The second, and more substantial, present is Keith Jarrett 75, a sequence of five tracks curated by producer Manfred Eicher himself. Opening with the churned butter of “Never Let Me Go” (Standards, Vol. 2), it flows in stride with the passage of time. Perennial partners Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette are more than a rhythm section, but organs of the same body returning home after a long sojourn. In Jarrett’s vocalizations we hear the ache of it all, pooling like rain in cupped flowers, flung into the air by Peacock’s organic solo. And speaking of solo, we transition into that very territory with Part VII of Creation. In this rolling wave of spirit, sentient waters and thoughtless continents meet to share their silences.

ME Sequence

Another jump in time and mood warps us to Jarrett’s European quartet with saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Palle Danielsson, and drummer Jon Christensen. Together, they unpack the largest cargo from the oceanic vessel that is “Personal Mountains.” A prototypical example of forward motion in music, it sustains inspiration from start to finish, Garbarek gilding the edges of Jarrett’s eyes, themselves closed in surrender. A shuffle of the deck brings us to the landmark duo record Jasmine with bassist Charlie Haden for a gently swinging take on “No Moon At All.” As sweet as it is sincere, it touches the soul with inspiration. Last but not least is “Flying Pt. 1” from Changes. A glorious soar through skies where wingtips catch clouds and leave melodic trails in their wake, it opens Jarrett’s inimitable trio like a book of truisms and waits for us to catch up with the confirmation of experience. The more exciting the music gets, the more we understand the power of harmony at altitudes beyond the audible.

Bley/Sheppard/Swallow: Life Goes On (ECM 2669)

| Tyran Grillo

2669 X

Carla Bley piano
Andy Sheppard tenor and soprano saxophones
Steve Swallow bass
Recorded May 2019, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: February 14, 2020

For its third ECM outing, pianist Carla Bley’s trio with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bassist Steve Swallow mixes up an antidote for these times of uncertainty and quarantine. The title suite is the first of three comprising the program. Given that “Life Goes On” came out of a recent brush with illness, it’s fitting that Bley should begin in the dark whimsy of the blues. Her left hand plows fertile soil before leaving Sheppard and Swallow to sow their thematic crop. Years of experience and collaboration funnel into Swallow’s intimate rapport with Bley and into Sheppard’s unforced, spiritual playing. The latter, whether breathing through tenor or soprano, takes two steps forward for every retreat.

A sardonic humor assumes center stage in the three-part “Beautiful Telephones.” The title, quoting a certain leader of the free world, speaks of dire political circumstances, which, like the dial tone of a nation on hold, keeps us hopeful for something that may never come. The central movement reveals some of the deepest conversations and finds Sheppard in an especially soulful mood. The jagged finish is about as astute a commentary as one could pen on the current state of things without words.

The trio saves its most lyrical for last in “Copycat”, which holds a candle to some neglected parts of the human condition. There’s so much beauty in the opening “After You” that only the vessel of the playful title section is big enough to contain it. Setting a tongue in every cheek, it coaxes us with a promise of better times.

Holding it all together is an almost photorealistic approach to life. Like the score pages above Bley’s face on the cover, time feels suspended at just the right moment to reveal a smile of hope beneath it all.

(This review originally appeared in the May 2020 issue of The New York City Jazz Record, a full PDF of which is available here.)

Interview: Keith Jarrett conducted by Timothy Hill

| Tyran Grillo

KJ front

This ultra-rare promotional CD from 1994 contains an interview with Keith Jarrett conducted by Timothy Hill. Much of the interview is spent discussing the backstory and recording circumstances of At The Deer Head Inn, Jarrett’s phenomenal live album with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian, and Bridge Of Light, a program of classical music composed by Jarrett.

When Jarrett first encountered the Deer Head Inn itself, it was the only place of its kind in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, where jazz wasn’t exactly on the hearts and minds of communities far more concerned with everyday practicalities. Jarrett was living in Allentown, where jazz was limited to generic rooms at best. Deer Head was far enough away that he wasn’t really aware of it until he got his first regular gig there, playing drums for local pianist (and Jarret’s personal friend) Johnny Coates. “I learned a lot about what not to do twice,” he recalls of those early gigging days, long before the piano became his forte. After two summers of grabbing the Deer Head by its antlers, sitting in sometimes on guitar (which, incidentally, earned him an invitation from Stan Getz to play in a Calypso band), he left that part of his history behind to dive headlong into his career as a pianist. By the time the Deer Head gig materialized, he hadn’t played there as pianist for nearly three decades.

Many elements came together for that performance to make it what it was. First, the venue was a “piano room” in the truest sense, a place of intimate construction that practically begged for Jarrett’s song. Second was the fact that drummer Jack DeJohnette, his trio go-to, was unable to make it, leading Motian to fill in at the last minute. Third was the “behavior and concentration” of everyone involved—a rapt attention he attributes at least in part to Motian’s involvement. When things come together like that, following a natural flow without depending on “large things,” as he puts it, magic is born.

Jarrett further bows to a certain magic in the recording itself. He mentions the “crucial little keys” of how a player is feeling, and how technology may struggle to capture those details in such a beautiful way. In this case, however, they shine through with utmost clarity, including the vocal exclamations for which he is (in)famously known. “I should’ve written them a thank you note,” he quips, speaking of Peacock and Motian, who he makes a point of noting added their own whoops of excitement in the heat of the moment. “If I’m going to be the culprit, let it be all three of us.” The conversation turns naturally to the tune “Chandra” (included along with “It’s Easy To Remember” at the end of this CD), which Jarrett praises for Motian’s avoidance of sticks altogether. Where any drummer would start with brushes and switch to the punctuation of sticks, Motian’s continuous brushing spoke directly to Jarrett’s heart: “This is what we’ve got now. This is what it is. And it put me in another place, where the expectations were not the same as they would be every time you play.” Thus did Motian pull everyone into the center of things.

At around the time that Bridge Of Light was coming together, he was already working on a commission from Japan to write the Adagio for oboe and string orchestra featured on the album. When told there would be time left in the program, his thoughts turned to the Elegy he was writing for his Hungarian grandmother. Taking such an active role in directing that recording was, for him, like “being in charge of a country,” whereas Deer Head was like “being not in charge and knowing it would be okay.” Such polar, yet parallel, opposites would seem to define his career. At Deer Head, for example, there wasn’t any music until it was played, whereas in a classical setting, anxieties toward perfection ran high. Classical musicians, he avers, should be less obsessed over playing the same music better than anyone else and more concerned about being themselves enough not to care, allowing the music to “bloom for itself” instead. And if blooming is what it’s all about, then Bridge (from which the Adagio and the “Dance” of Jarrett’s violin sonata are also included here) is a veritable field of life.

“You don’t have to be emphatic when you’re doing something beautiful,” says Jarrett of the creative process. “If you emphasize the beauty of something, you might step on it.” And while one might easily flag this statement for hypocrisy, spoken as it is by someone who can stretch a concert staple like “Autumn Leaves” to well over 20 minutes, there’s a sense that Jarrett is always saying what needs to be said and, accordingly, wasting no notes whenever he’s “on.” As he observes of jazz: “It would be as though you were to write poetry in more than one language at a time…and make it somehow into a coherent language of its own.”

As interesting as the above insights are, at best I would say this rarity has value only as an archival curiosity for the Jarrett completist, though it’s always fascinating to hear him speak of his own work. Either way, the objects of this discussion tell more of their past, present, and future than even he could, and perhaps our journey to find and experience them is the strongest bridge of all.

20004-2-cd

David Byrne: Music for The Knee Plays

| Tyran Grillo

25022-front-3

David Byrne
Music from The Knee Plays

Garnett Brown trombone
Ray Brown trumpet
David Byrne vocals
Pete Christlieb saxophone
Rich Cooper trumpet
Ernie Fields baritone saxophone
Chuck Findley trumpet
Bill Green baritone saxophone
Bobbye Hall percussion
Dana Hughes trombone
Paul Humphrey drums
Jackie Keslo saxophone
Harry Kim trumpet
Don Myrick saxophone
Nolan Smith trumpet
David Stout trombone
Phil Teil trombone
Ernie Watts saxophone
Fred Wesley trombone
David Blumberg conductor
Recorded:
One On One Studio, North Hollywood, April 4, 1984
Engineer: Mark Wolfson
Studio Sound Recorders, North Hollywood, April 5 & 6, 1984
Engineer: Joel Moss
Mixed at RPM Studio, December 8-17, 1984
Originally Mastered at Sterling Sound, NY
Produced by David Byrne

A tree is best measured when it is down.

This 1985 release, a rare one for ECM, comes from the fertile mind of Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. Originally intended as incidental music for Robert Wilson’s grand opera The CIVIL warS, to be played while actors and crew prepared set between acts, these brass-heavy arrangements of traditional tunes, folded into a rich batter of original compositions and spoken word, take their inspiration from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band of New Orleans and have since come to constitute a standalone work in their own right.

“Tree (Today Is An Important Occasion)” sets the tone for a journey of horns and voice that is as even-tempered as it is dramatically sincere. This postmodern dirge for the otherwise voiceless intersections of body and materials that govern our lives is perhaps even more relevant now than when it was written. Colors and fashion, each linked to specific emotions and personality traits, roll through the mind like an art gallery disassembled and thrown. As possibilities of self-expression are donned and discarded like replaceable skins, we are left to determine our own subjectivity in the onslaught of objective pretense we call our daily lives. The mélange effect of worlds colliding is dazzling in the moment yet darkly tinged in the remembering.

“The Sound Of Business” is a detailed assessment of our work-obsessed culture. Its uncanny chain of images contrasts the bustle of everyday life with the slow-motion fantasies struggling for air beneath its surface. “Social Studies” pulls away another mask to reveal the colonial scaffolding of well-to-do urbanites. Through deconstruction of knowledge-seeking privilege and the impulse to study that which does not belong to us, it puts our desire to live vicariously under a sonic microscope.

Byrne’s voice is a powerfully understated element. With consistent, even-tempered brilliance, he speaks matter-of-factly about large ideas (and hugely about the mundane), such that the very notion of importance stands on its head until it passes out. Even in his absence, the effect remains. Among the instrumentals he helped arrange, “Theadora Is Dozing” is a particularly enchanting tessellation of brass and percussion, while his own “Admiral Perry” is another standout for its evocative cast, as is the haunting “Winter.”

“In The Future” is quintessential Byrne, and imagines a time when sameness is the norm and norms are all the same. Like an intimate shadow of his timeless “Once in a Lifetime,” this crushing indictment of individualism shows us the horrors of an age when everybody becomes like everybody else. And so, ending in the comforts of the opener’s reprise, we realize that wheels are all there are, and that we, the ephemeral rats running nowhere within them, might one day destroy each other until there’s nothing left.

Pat Metheny Group: Live In Concert

| Tyran Grillo

PRO-030-front

Pat Metheny Group
Live In Concert

Pat Metheny guitars
Lyle Mays keyboards
Mark Egan bass
Dan Gottlieb drums
Recorded August 31, 1977
at the Great American Music Hall, San Francisco
Radio broadcast by KJAZ
Engineer: Bud Spangler
“San Lorenzo” recorded September 4, 1977
at Seattle Opera House
Radio broadcast by KZAM
Engineer: Rick Keefer
Prepared for release by Robert Hurwitz

This rare promo-only LP documents two live radio broadcasts from the summer of 1977 by the Pat Metheny Group. Three of the four tracks are taken from a performance at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall as heard on KJAZ, while the outlier, “San Lorenzo,” was heard on KZAM from a performance at the Seattle Opera House. That latter tune is a thing of archival beauty. First, we get to hear Metheny introducing to the crowd what has since become a staple of the band’s repertoire as a “brand-new one.” Second, Metheny gives brief insight into its “odd tuning for the electric 12-string” and by extension into his process. This information only heightens our wonder at what transpires for its effortlessness of execution in a nascent stage, while also cluing us in on the historicity of its coalescence. Moreover, Metheny and company play it more slowly and enigmatically than on the seminal album they would record for ECM a year later, thus allowing keyboardist Lyle Mays a horizon’s worth of space in which to dance.

Mays, by any stretch of the imagination, is the highest mountain on that horizon (its peak now glowing more brightly than ever in the light of his recent passing). The greenery he paints in “Watercolors” drips as if after a rainstorm of hope and nostalgia. Amid drummer Dan Gottlieb’s glistening cymbals, he pays deference to an underlying ether. Gottlieb shines also in “Phase Dance,” which opens the album. In this setting, it immediately becomes apparent just how much ECM production brings out from certain configurations. Hearing the Pat Metheny Group in close quarters like this allows individual lines to rise lucidly, leaving us to imagine the depths extracted in a studio setting. Either way, it’s glorious to hear the band’s vibrant turns of phrase. Mark Egan’s electric bass is the backbone, flexing in harmony with every shift of weight. The excitement of the crowd is also palpable, and shows how well-traveled the music was on the road before it landed in the studio a year later. It’s worth noting that the title here is misspelled as “Phase Dancer” on the LP sleeve, as it may just be the most accurate description of Mays’s mode throughout the lesser-heard “Wrong is Right.” Its vivacity, to say little of Metheny’s golden solo, shows what can happen when musicians and listeners share the same oxygen. As KZAM-FM’s then-music director Jon Kertzer writes on the back cover: “Forget about jazz-rock fusion and who played with whom and where. Just sit back and listen to the music—some of the most refreshing and creative sounds that I have heard in a long time.”

William Naboré: Franz Schubert – Piano Sonatas

| Tyran Grillo

ECM TRIO PAC-205-front

William Naboré
Franz Schubert – Piano Sonatas

William Naboré piano
Recorded May 1976 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

When ECM recorded Valery Afanassiev performing at the 1985 Lockenhaus Festival, it would be label’s first intersection with Schubert after its classical-leaning New Series imprint went into effect. Sadly, that recording didn’t see daylight until 1998. Still, it set a benchmark for future New Series way stations in the ongoing Schubertian journey that has since unfolded. But ECM and Schubert have an even deeper relationship going back to 1976, when Virginia-born pianist William Naboré made this rare recording (distributed in Japan on Trio Records) at Ludwigsburg’s Tonstudio Bauer under the direction of producer Manfred Eicher and engineer Martin Wieland. In a way, Afanassiev picked up where Naboré left off, taking on Schubert’s posthumous opus DV 960 in B-flat Major, while this album begins with DV 959 in A Major. Naboré’s reading of the latter is as distinguished as anyone familiar with his playing will expect. It’s also chock-full of selectively applied exuberance, especially in the righthanded tone clusters of the Andantino. Before that, however, a faintly Mozartian take on the opening Allegro lends insight into a player who reinforces the architecture of what came before so that he might have the most artful support possible for his sometimes-acrobatic bursts of whimsy. In that precise vein, his rendering of the third movement—a delicate Scherzo—is exquisitely detailed. The final Rondo-into-Allegretto speaks of a composer who, at the end of his short life, had already perfected the sonata form as he understood it to the point of breathing it out onto the page, despite his rapidly waning health, and of a performer who, only a few years older than Schubert himself when he wrote it, understands this music as if it were his own.

By the time of this recording, as Naboré himself observes in an album note, apocryphal impulses had crept their way into the hands of many a Schubert interpreter. “The Schubert sonatas,” he writes, “are addressed to the imagination and need no such props to validate their existence.” True to his assessment, Naboré uses steadfast restraint as a source of illumination from within rather than elaboration from without, as is especially the case in this program’s second half. The C Major Sonata, DV 840, was composed in 1825 and bears the title “Reliquie” (referring to its unfinished state, as only two full movements survive). Nevertheless, the initiatory Moderato is in no way diminished by its power of execution in this most fundamental of tonalities. There’s a geometrical quality to be experienced that holds its breath throughout the Andante that follows. Though no less dramatic than its predecessor, the mood is subtler in its urging. Thus, the intimacy of this recording (and of the instrument it captures) only enhances the grandeur of Schubert’s spirit (and Naboré’s ability to extract it).