Jazz

An Hour With Pat Metheny: A Radio Special

| Tyran Grillo

ECM PRO-A-810 Side A

In March of 1979, Pat Metheny appeared on the “Oral Tradition” radio program (broadcast out of Venice, California) to talk about the Pat Metheny Group’s self-titled debut and his then freshly released solo follow-up, New Chautauqua. Produced by Martin Perlich, this hour-long special was released on a rare promo LP by ECM and features an in-depth conversation with the guitarist between selections from both of albums.

Metheny gets into the meat and potatoes of his upbringing. Growing up in small-town Missouri among a family of trumpet players, his brother Mike having taught the instrument at Berklee College of Music in Boston from 1976 to 1983, Metheny needed only reach his hand out to grab hold of one. And that he did, joining the school band and doing fairly well for himself until his need for braces put an end to his future in brass. Immersed as he was in Top 40 culture, guitar was an easy choice for a substitute, and so he picked out his first axe and starting swinging. After doing the “garage band thing” for about a year, at age 14 he had a watershed moment when he saw Wes Montgomery and Gary Burton’s group perform a stone’s throw away in Kansas City. Hearing improvisation in earnest for the first time, and in such close quarters, converted him to jazz on the spot. It wasn’t long before he had every album by Burton, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane he could get his hands on. He recalls how naturally the concepts of jazz came to him, whereas in rock music the role of the guitar was ultimately unclear. Sitting in with blues musicians in Kansas City, where he humbly guesses he was being brought onstage as more of a novelty at first than anything else, was his first real classroom. After a year of teaching in Miami, he joined Burton’s band with Steve Swallow, Bob Moses, and Mick Goodrick, all of whom saw something in the young guitarist. Along with their already-heightened abilities came the patience needed to allow someone like Metheny to blossom.

Metheny elaborates on his jump from rock to jazz. Whereas in the former vein he saw a vital sensuality that was of organic appeal to younger listeners, he also yearned for a subtlety that rock just didn’t have. He even gave prog (Deep Purple, Iron Butterfly, etc.) a chance in the hopes there might be something there. But he quickly realized how those guitarists were just “playing blues scales up and down like every rock player always did, [only] a lot longer and twice as boring.” It was in improvisation that he found the wider, more nuanced feeling he was searching for, and the first guitar icon to show him how it was done was Jimi Hendrix. Thinking back on it, he still wonders how Hendrix was as popular as he was. Still, Hendrix was in no way a conscious influence, but a talent to look upon with wonder. In Metheny’s estimation, the guitar was essentially neglected as a frontline instrument until Larry Coryell joined forces with Burton in 1967, paving the way for John McLaughlin and other pioneers. Before then, advances in guitar technology just weren’t developed enough to make it stand out against the harmonic landscape of a saxophone or piano. Coryell was groundbreaking for bringing a hard-edged sound to a jazz context, thereby widening the scope of what the instrument could do as a method of sound production. When Metheny himself came on the scene in 1974, the only viable gigs for jazz guitarists were with Jack DeJohnette, Chico Hamilton, or Burton. Burton was the natural fit.

From Pat Metheny Group we hear “Phase Dance” and “San Lorenzo.” In light these wonders, even Metheny is aware of their commercial appeal the non-jazz listeners (the album hit the Billboard charts, after all) but is adamant about changing nothing to achieve that success. “I just physically couldn’t play something that I didn’t really believe in,” he admits, thus capturing something essential to the steadfastness of his art.

Metheny transitions into reminiscing about touring in Oslo, where he spent three days writing, and two more recording, the music that would become New Chautauqua. Spurred on by fears of typecasting himself, and encouraged by producer Manfred Eicher, transitioning from a quartet to a solo project was the logical next step in his recording journey (though he isn’t without his sense of humor, as when quipping about a “fantasy record” with Lyle Mays and singer Nicolette Larson). Metheny likens the sound of Chautauqua to the open spaces of his childhood—hence the country twang of the album’s title tune (heard here, along with “Sueño Con Mexico” and “Daybreak,” the latter a nod to the Beatles’ “Please Please Me”). He also unpacks the title, which pays homage to the so-called Chautauqua who drove around playing one-nighters all up and down the Midwest (his great-grandfather, in fact, was a leader of one such group).

In addition to these anecdotal details, Metheny reveals a bit of his creative process. “Every time we hit the stage and we play the first notes, it enters a completely different realm for me,” he says of live performance, which is more than his wheelhouse but a way of life. He goes on to describe his style as one of playing “out” and never for himself, and shares an analogy for playing that was passed on to him by Burton: “There’s a whole grammar thing you go through when you’re becoming a musician and an improviser that’s very similar to…when you’re a child and you’re learning…how to speak…. It gets to the point where…you don’t think about verbs and pronouns and stuff…you just say whatever you have to say and it comes out. Sometimes there’s little goofs…but the message comes through if you’ve got something to say. It’s exactly the same when you’re improvising. You have this whole backlog of information, but when it comes time to play, as you become more advanced as a player, you think less and less about the technical things…and you just say what you have to say, and hopefully the audience will respond to what you’re saying if you make the picture clear enough for them.” And how does he respond whenever people come up to him and ask how he plays so well? “I haven’t practiced in four years.” The stage is where it all goes down.

“I don’t see myself as a guitar player that plays melodies in a setting,” he self-observes. “I see the act of playing the guitar and writing the tunes and having the band as a statement about what I want to be like as a guy, you know…. If I were ever not going to do that, I would go sell cars for my father.” Of course, we can be thankful he isn’t selling cars but rather music that was made to flow from their stereos as we drive along open roads to places we’ve yet to know.

ECM PRO-A-810 Side B

Peter Rühmkorf: Jazz & Lyrik.

| Tyran Grillo

JL cover

Peter Rühmkorf
Jazz & Lyrik.

Peter Rühmkorf voice
Michael Naura piano
Wolfgang Schlüter vibraphone
Klaus Thunemann bassoon
Eberhard Weber bass, violoncello
Christian Willisohn piano
Titus Vollmer guitar
Leszek Zadlo saxophone, flute
Christian Kappe flugelhorn, trumpet
Ansgar Elsner saxophone
Burkhard Jasper piano
Alexander Morsey bass
Klaus Gunnemann drums
Dietmar Bonnen piano
Andreas Schilling bass
Mastering: Eberhard Schnellen and ECM Records
Studio: ES-Dur, Hamburg
Produced by Hoffmann und Campe in collaboration with ECM Records
Release date: November 17, 2009

Jazz & Lyrik names a genre that might never have existed as such without Peter Rühmkorf (1929-2008). Together with pianist Michael Naura, vibraphonist Wolfgang Schlüter, and a host of other talents, the lauded German poet and essayist brought a consistent physical quality to his spoken artistry. It’s a characteristic he quite consciously cultivated: “I’m also a bit like an instrument,” he said in 1985. “My poems are fixed, like the keys on a piano. Only I must strike with the voice. The poem I read is my instrument. I just have to intone it.” While the form of jazz poetry presented in this 3-disc treasure trove, an archive coproduced by Hoffmann und Campe in collaboration with ECM Records and with support from the Arno Schmidt Foundation, reached its peak in the 1960s, the recordings documented here span from 1976 to 2006. The former year was a watershed one, when Rühmkorf recorded Kein Apolloprogramm für Lyrik for ECM. On that album, from which eight tracks are included, he joined forces with Naura, Schlüter, and bassist Eberhard Weber, yielding such phenomenally descriptive morsels as “Tagebuch” and “Zirkus.”

Eight further tracks are also included to represent the 1978 follow-up album, Phönix Voran. Leszek Zadlo (saxophone and flute) replaces Weber, making for a folk-tinged change of scenery and adding delight to such tracks as “Ich butter meinen Toast von beiden Seiten” and “Allein Ist Nicht Genug.”

Yet this album’s most valuable rarities are in its live recordings—delightful not only for their historical value, but also for the insight they provide into Rühmkorf’s effect on an audience. The standout in this regard is “Variation auf »Abendlied« von Matthias Claudius,” from an 18 September 1994 performance. As Rühmkorf riffs on the lyrics of Germany’s most beloved lullaby, he brings an improvisatory quality to the reading, so much so that the applause that follow it feel like those given after a jazz soloist passes the torch. The arrangement by Naura and Schlüter is as heartwarming as it is sincere (it’s also among the more pristinely recorded of the live selections).

This set also traces the afterlife of Phönix Voran as it played out in radio broadcasts from 1987, 2001, and 2005. These unlock secrets in that album’s highlights (especially “Komm raus!”) and others that never made it to the studio (“Einen zweiten Weg ums Gehirn rum”). The addition of guitarist Titus Vollmer in the middle performance is magical, as is the effect of hearing Rühmkorf’s voice recite the title poem on three separate occasions over a period of nearly as many decades.

Other noteworthy selections include the self-styled studio composition “Elbterrassen,” in which Rühmkorf beats over a recording of “C Jam Blues” from the Johnny Griffin album At Onkel Pö’s Carnegie Hall, Hamburg 1975; “Früher, als wir die großen Ströme noch …,” a 2005 performance featuring a rhythm and horn section, along with the less tangible instrument of Rühmkorf’s sly humor; and “Betr. Rundfrage Grundfrage,” a 2006 interpretation of a 1998 poem whose domesticity meshes beautifully with the intimate microscopy of pianist Dietmar Bonnen and bassist Andreas Schilling.

Rühmkorf had a wonderful way of speaking, at once in rhythm with the music (if not the other way around) and wandering its own path freely alongside it. What a significant achievement to have it so lovingly preserved, especially in such a mosaiced fashion. As the title of “Bleib erschütterbar und widersteh” reminds us: stay shattered and resist glory.

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.”

Mal Waldron: Spanish Bitch

| Tyran Grillo

SMJX 10113-LP-front

Mal Waldron
Spanish Bitch

Mal Waldron piano
Isla Eckinger bass
Fred Braceful percussion
Recorded September 18, 1970 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Kurt Rapp
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Post-bop master Mal Waldron may just be the most important musician in ECM history, if only because his Free At Last was the label’s first bona fide release, opening a doorway to a paramount catalog of music. And while that seminal album, recorded in 1969, has recaptured the spotlight in a recent vinyl reissue, listeners may not be aware that Waldron stepped into the studio a year later to lay down a sequel of sorts. Recorded at Tonstudio Bauer, with Kurt Rapp engineering and Manfred Eicher producing, the curiously titled Spanish Bitch never made it to ECM proper and was released instead in Japan on the Globe label. Like its predecessor, Spanish finds the pianist in a trio setting, once again with go-to bassist Isla Eckinger but now, in place of Clarence Becton, welcoming Fred Braceful on drums.

SMJX 10113-LP-inside

SIDE A opens with the eponymous tune, and through its modal affiliations nods in the direction of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, who also appropriated Spanish scales for effect. In his hands, however, such motifs take on an almost ritualistic quality as scaffolding for an idiosyncratic reverie. From a web of bass and plucked piano strings emerges a vibrant block of chords. Waldron sets aside the theme almost as soon as he develops it, using it as a springboard for his laser-focused energy. Eckinger’s unusual solo sets up Waldron’s phenomenal own, building to steadfast density and playing off Braceful with glorious aplomb. This is followed by Waldron’s audacious take on “Eleanor Rigby.” A somewhat warped version of this evergreen, it boasts a robustness of architecture such as only Waldron could blueprint. He owns the song from start to finish, turning it into something of a macabre lullaby.

SIDE B pulls us back into original territory with the laddering effect of “Black Chant.” Initial restraint waters a muscular flower of high tone clusters over a plowing left hand. Though the aesthetic is Waldron’s own, it incorporates the voices, movements, and hardships of many who came before him. But don’t mistake this for catharsis. It is, rather, a link in a humble chain. Another original, “All That Funk,” saves the strongest for last. Here Waldron swings hard like a ton of rocks, leaving plenty of room for Eckinger’s forthright exposition before punctuating a groovy dialogue with Braceful. Here most of all, Waldron’s playing comports itself as a force to reckon with in three dimensions. Thus, his willingness to go deep into the darkest parts of his musical soul yields blinding light.

SMJX 10113-LP-back

As a service to completists, below I have translated the original Japanese liner notes by jazz critic and producer Masahiko Yuh (悠雅彦):

The first thing to catch my eye is this album’s title, Spanish Bitch. It brings me back to one late May evening, when Mal was listening to Miles’s widely lauded Bitches Brew in an apartment not too far from the center of Munich. Mal just sat there without a word, casting his gaze in my direction from time to time to show me how much he admired the extraordinary beauty of Miles’s music. I can still see that gentle smile.

“Anyone would be captivated by this music on the surface. But the real beauty of Miles is on the inside. It’s amazing, don’t you think?”

I’ll never forget the way Mal’s eyes sparkled as he said this. There’s no reason to think he would be married to his choice of album title here. This music, painted as it was on his canvas, clearly differs from the world of sorcery and black magic that so enamored Miles (Bitch = Witch), who had incorporated a representative mode of Spanish folk music for little more than exotic effect. That said, remembering Mal’s expressions of enthusiasm, I like to think that perhaps in using the word “Bitch” he had Bitches Brew somewhere in mind. And as the light percussion of Ina’s knife from the dimly lit kitchen mingled pleasantly with Miles’s trumpet, it may be that the concept behind Spanish Bitch was already starting to take shape. As I made to leave, Mal handed me a copy of the ECM label’s first release, his own Free At Last (Japanese catalog number SMJX-10098). About four months later, on September 18, 1970, Mal would head into Tonstudio Bauer in the city of Ludwigsburg with bassist Isla Eckinger and drummer Fred Braceful to record his second album for ECM, Spanish Bitch.

… . … . … . …

Mal Waldron vanished from the American jazz scene in 1965, when he moved across the pond to Europe. It would be fair to say, however, that he had already been primed to do so since ’62, when his singular career as a jazz pianist came to a halt. In ’63, a long bout with illness left him virtually unable to perform. Moreover, life in America had hijacked his creative ambition. And so, as had happened over the past few years when playing with Mingus and Dolphy, among others, there was no longer anything to ignite his passion.

In ’64, Mal wrote his first film score for Cool World. “Not even that lit a fire under me to perform,” he recalls. At the time, Mal was shut in with his parents, who lived in Jamaica, Queens. But then, another composing gig: this for a French film called Three Rooms in Manhattan. Gleefully, he flew to France and, after a month of taking in the freer air of Paris, completed his score.

A brief return home found him hurriedly putting the finishing touches on scoring and recording for the film Sweet Love, Bitter, by then already intent on putting America behind him. This was how Mal, once separated from performing in earnest, ended his film composing career as quickly as it began. He also knew that a host of new creative endeavors awaited him in Europe.

And that was how, in the fall of 1965, he settled down in Paris at last. That same year and the next, Mal took part in the Bologna Jazz Festival. It was during that time that he recorded his well-known tune “All Alone” and moved to Germany by way of Italy at the end of ’66.

He landed in Munich in ’67 and never left, and since then has become a fixture of this city.

Munich was love at first sight. Here he discovered Swiss bassist Isla Eckinger and American-born drummer Clarence Becton, the talented jazzmen with whom he would play on Free At Last. He was able to take short trips to European capitals and make a living by performing jazz. It’s easy to imagine how much contentment it brought him. Above all, however, it was the superlative atmosphere of the Domicile jazz club, where he enjoyed performing every night, and where the ancient and the modern comingled in perfect accord, that kept him there. The atmosphere in Munich was the freshest and most alive in all of Germany.

Nearly every jazz fan and musician who set foot inside the country paid a visit to Munich, where they were sure to drop by Domicile. Dusko Goykovich led his big band there, bringing verve to a packed house amid uproarious applause. Recently, bassist Jimmy Woode sat in with Mal’s trio, and, much in contrast to Mal’s deadpan demeanor, coaxed smiles from the crowd like a circus clown. Pony Poindexter, stopping over on his way to Belgium, was also welcomed onstage. With alto in hand, he gave a laid-back performance. One night it would be Benny Bailey, the next it might be the Clarke-Boland Big Band delighting audiences to overflowing. Such was the energy Domicile was known for. Only when Mal sat down at the piano did an apparently miraculous silence take over the room. His profound reverberations and faint tone colors coiled about the feet of everyone squatting next to all those great black musicians whose portraits hung on every wall. It was most unbefitting of this city’s nondescript lights and the hammering of Olympic construction outside. I dare say, his own hammering thundered more eternally. Still, Mal’s acute sensibilities already had a whiff of German folklore to them, combining with his ancestral blood to produce an even deeper, heavier reverberation. We both remember that time, when he recorded “All Alone” during his brief Italian sojourn, a tune replete with the sun of the south country in all its warped beauty, laden with transparent pathos…. I don’t know anyone who so intuitively grasps the plight of ethnic peoples and who struggles so earnestly with his own music as Mal.

Keith Jarrett: Salle Pleyel Paris 1992

| Tyran Grillo

KJ INEDITS

Recorded at Salle Pleyel in Paris on October 25, 1992 and produced by Manfred Eicher, this was a limited promotional item offered by the French retail chain Fnac to customers who purchased two qualifying ECM or ECM New Series CDs. Consisting of two exclusive tracks, it’s a poignant snapshot of Jarrett atop a mountain no one else is likely ever to scale.

His perennial encore, “Over The Rainbow,” glistens with lyrical suppleness. Looking back as we can through the lens of retrospection, we find in it the story of an entire career, if not also the life it defines: from the initial stirrings of talent that surely twitched in the young pianist’s fingers, through the chronic fatigue syndrome that would all but hijack his gifts four years later (incidentally, when this disc was offered), and beyond a recovery whose afterglow continues to illuminate ears in the darkest hours. No matter how sweeping, dramatic, and turbulent the experiences that came before, we can hold vigil in these fleeting moments of intimacy before they turn away from us to seek the hand of an ether we have yet to touch.

In the wake of this inward glance, the exuberance of Jarrett’s own “C The Blues” feels like a splash of water on the face. Romping through memories as if they were a muddy riverbank along which the dead and the living dance in celebration of kinship, Jarrett gives every mouth a voice. The colorful ornaments of his right hand are the nurture to his left’s nature, each note a word spoken, a relationship formed, a spirit harnessed, only to fade as quickly as it forms. Like the fog of a window about to be defrosted, it resolves into a clarity of vision such as only he can provide.

These same two tracks also appeared on a CD included with issue No. 672 of the French magazine Jazz in May of 2015:

Jazz Magazine

Jazz Magazine CD

Gerry Mulligan and The Concert Jazz Band: Young Blood (Jazz at the Concertgebouw)

| Tyran Grillo

Live Mulligan

The document presented here for our consideration by the Dutch Jazz Archive is important not only as a gem for fans of Gerry Mulligan, but also for reasserting the baritone saxophonist’s first love of the large ensemble. His self-styled Concert Jazz Band was indeed a return to form. Recorded on November 5th, 1960 at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, this performance finds Mulligan commanding his instrument in such a way that only the vessel of a big band would have been large enough to contain it.

Mulligan and friends chew on a wide-ranging repertoire, but especially seem to savor the iconic Johnny Mandel, represented in three tunes from his soundtrack to the 1958 Susan Hayward vehicle I Want to Live! (the theme, “Black Nightgown” and “Barbara’s Theme”).

Alongside these cinematic turns, each a noir-ish sashay through smoke-filled rooms and even smokier intentions, we find a smattering of standards and showtunes, including the swinging Richard Rodgers- Lorenz Hart’s “You Took Advantage Of Me” (Rodgers/Hart) and slower drawl of “Come Rain Or Come Shine” (Arlen/Mercer).

Though Mulligan never treated this band as a showcase for his own writing, his are some of the highest points in the set. Of those, “Apple Core” provides a towering stage for guest soloist tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims who, despite being in less-than-stellar condition, brings a lithe kinesis to the fore. The title track is another standout swing. In the latter vein, the rhythm section of bassist Buddy Clark and drummer Mel Lewis is on point throughout, but especially in “As Catch Can,” in which they anticipate every turn of the wheel.

Fiery solos abound, including alto saxophonist Gene Quill’s in “18 Carrots For Rabbit” and trumpeter Conte Candoli’s in the title track. Mulligan himself goes for quality over quantity, adding grit wherever he treads, especially in a spotlight rendition of “My Funny Valentine,” and with that characteristic dark edge only he could hone.

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

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

Kristjan Randalu/Dave Liebman: Mussorgsky Pictures Revisited

| Tyran Grillo

MPR

Although Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky (1839-81) is best remembered for Night on Bald Mountain and Pictures at an Exhibition, the latter has had the more interesting afterlife, inspiring arrangements from such wide-ranging artists as prog-rockers Emerson, Lake & Palmer, German metal band Mekong Delta and Japanese electronic pioneer Tomita. Yet this duo of soprano saxophonist Dave Liebman and pianist Kristjan Randalu presents more than a recasting of the Mussorgsky mold, instead a fresh landscape irrigated by channeling water from the source material. Case in point is the jaunting “Promenade,” which opens in straightforward territory but which in subsequent iterations (five in all) draws out hidden messages.

Liebman understands how to turn even the most familiar melodies inside out without losing their skin in the process. His tone is as flexible and colorful as ever, navigating every twist of “Les Tuileries” and “The Market” with characteristic attention to detail. The physicality of his artistry is most obvious in “Ballet of the Unhatched Chickens,” as also in his bluesy handling of “Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle,” the latter a veiled stand-alone among extroverted peers. Randalu, for his part, is as comfortable laying foundations as he is building on top of them. Whether orienting his compass to the lodestar of “Bydło” or jazzing up “Baba Yaga” with exuberance, he makes sure that every wisp of proverbial smoke fulfills its promise of fire. As a unit, he and Liebman find profoundest coherence in “Il Vecchio Castello,” of which they make an understated dirge.

And so, by the time we reach the farewell of “The Heroic Gate,” we are confident in having been somewhere. This is, of course, the whole point of Mussorgsky’s greatest hit: to place us in that gallery so that we may feel the colors of every scene as if they were our own.

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

Jøkleba: Outland (ECM 2413)

| Tyran Grillo

Outland

Jøkleba
Outland

Per Jørgensen trumpet, vocals, kalimba, flute
Jon Balke electronics, piano
Audun Kleive electronics, drums, percussion
Recorded May 2014 at Madstun, Fall and Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineers: Audun Kleive and Jan Erik Kongshaug
Mixed by Audun Kleive
Mastered by Bob Katz
Produced by Jøkleba
Release date: October 24, 2014

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?
–Sylvia Plath, “Elm”

Although Per Jørgensen (trumpet, vocals, kalimba, flute), Jon Balke (electronics, piano), and Audun Kleive (electronics, drums, percussion) had already made four albums as Jøkleba before debuting on ECM under that same name, each musician had been involved in numerous other productions for the label. That said, this set of literarily themed improvisations leaves its own set of fingerprints, the whorls of which are spectral in range. By the second track, “Bell Jar,” itself a saline flush of digital impulses and organic trumpeting, the listener will know whether leaving or staying feels like the right thing to do.

To be sure, there’s much to admire here. From the visceral mountain calls in “Blind Owl” and “Horla” to the moonlit twinges of “The Nightwood” and “Below The Vulcano,” this trio knows how to craft a mood from scratch with cinematic lucidity. And while each musician contributes a personal energy throughout, for me it’s Jørgensen as vocalist who links the most creative chains. He plays the trumpet as if it were his own voice and sings as if his throat were honed in brass. The album’s most intriguing passages are his to carry. “Brighton,” for example, unfolds with the cadence of a Butoh dance, rich with meaning in the subtlest of movements.

Amid these abstractions, the appearance of piano and drums in “Rodion” feels like an oasis in the desert. “One Flew Over” gives further traction to the keyboard, and by that deference hints at something more pre than post. By the end, we’re left with a slipstream narrative that neither fulfills a promise nor answers a question. And perhaps that’s the way they prefer it.

Avishai Cohen: Big Vicious (ECM 2680)

| Tyran Grillo

2680 X

Avishai Cohen
Big Vicious

Avishai Cohen trumpet, effects, synthesizer
Uzi Ramirez guitar
Jonathan Albalak guitar, bass
Aviv Cohen drums
Ziv Ravitz drums, live sampling
Recorded August 2019, Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineers: Gérard de Haro and Romain Castéra
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: March 27, 2020

Big Vicious marks the studio debut of trumpeter Avishai Cohen’s eponymous band. Already six years old, this assembly with Uzi Ramirez (guitar), Jonathan Albalak (guitar, bass), Aviv Cohen (drums), and Ziv Ravitz (drums, live sampling) embodies the canyon-wide leap of evolution Cohen has taken across ECM’s terrain since Into The Silence in 2016. This album is distinguished by its digital sheen, which through a web of guitars and live sampling shines the light of a distant future on the darker here and now. It’s a sensation amplified by the project’s silent partner, Tel Aviv musician-producer Yuvi Havkin (a.k.a. Rejoicer), who served as Cohen’s cowriter (another new direction for the frontman) on such tracks as “Honey Fountain” and “Teno Neno.” Where the former lifts the spirit by chains of echoing sentiment, even as it redraws boundaries of the flesh from which it stretches a hand toward hope, the latter tune speaks of moonlight in the language of a star.

From start to finish, Cohen fulfills the role of a storyteller gathering characters, dialogue, and settings, and in his combinations of those elements forges history. Throughout “Hidden Chamber,” his trumpet is a warrior of light, a reminder that politics forces us into places where tongues of strife lose their sense of taste. Cohen’s composing paves us a viable detour. From the propulsive bassing of “King Kutner” to the regressive groove of “This Time It’s Different,” every melody oils our skin through the thorny bramble of adversity.

The brightest heavenly bodies are the band’s arrangements. Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” for one, is reborn. Shedding every possible shade of cliché, it lives in a space only ECM can provide. Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” gets an equally postlapsarian treatment and harks to the earliest days of Big Vicious, when Cohen and friends mainly played 90s covers. The original lyrics of this song are appropriate in describing the present sound:

Water is my eye
Most faithful mirror
Fearless on my breath
Teardrop on the fire
Of a confession

Likewise, messages ooze from the ground as if during a spring thaw. Each is artfully crafted, traveling upward in a vortex of self-regard.

Of especial note is the album’s cover, a painting by David Polonsky, perhaps best known for Waltz with Bashir. Like the image itself, this is music that eschews photorealism in favor of something touched by hands, materials, and movement. It is also the visual equivalent of the album’s closer, “Intent,” which is so smooth that you might just find yourself blending in with your surroundings, wherever you happen to be.