With pictures from a train window, Bulgarian-born vibraphonist and composer Errol Rackipov debuts his eponymous group with guitarist Hristo Vitchev, reedman Lubomir Gospodinov, pianist Martin Bejerano, bassist Josh Allen, and drummer Rodolfo Zuniga. Listening to the groove laid down by the bandleader on “Mad Djore,” it won’t come as any surprise that the mallet man studied under greats Gary Burton and Ed Saindon. But there’s also an underlying sensibility that is uniquely his own, and which he expresses in his ability to keep his musicians in focus.
The ever-prolific Vitchev trades his normally outgoing smoothness for the back road, architecting his virtuosity distinctly in “Folk Dance” but for the most part content in providing tender underpinnings. Gospodinov carries the band into nostalgic territory on “Far Away From Here, A Long Time Ago,” where his sopranism reveals the art of a genuinely melodic improviser. Then there’s Allen, whose bassing draws triple-metered spirals in “Dill Man,” also a fine vehicle for Bejerano’s pianism. As for Zuniga, he is the heartbeat of heartbeats, anchoring the set from start to finish with chameleonic ability.
Yet despite, if not also because of, these contributions, pictures is Rackipov’s baby through and through. He is a consummate player who shows not only the skin but the internal organs, and whose geometric styling leaves few facets un-rendered. Be it the Eastern European folksiness of “Jumble” and “The Other (Wrong) Way,” the sparkling dialoguing with Vitchev in “Wild River,” or laid-back beauties of the title track, he spins the wheel with assurance and tenderness. As on the final “Once A Mother Had A Child” by Dimitar Ianev, the only non-original of the album, his attention to structure leaves an aftertaste that is clean, sonorous, and itinerant, making for a lovely addition to any vibraphone enthusiast’s shelf.
On Tuesday, 9 February 2016, Keith Jarrett returned to Carnegie Hall for a solo performance of spontaneously improvised music. My review of the concert is now available at All About Jazzhere.
Tigran Hamasyan piano, prepared piano Yerevan State Chamber Choir Harutyun Topikyan conductor
Recorded October 2014 at Argo Recording Studio, Yerevan
Engineer: Markus Heiland
Assistant engineer: Armen Paremuzyan
Mixed March 2015 at RSI Studio Lugano by Markus Heiland, Manfred Eicher, and Tigran Hamasyan
Produced by Manfred Eicher
U.S. release date: October 2, 2015
Luys i Luso realizes the dream of Tigran Hamasyan to build an entire album around the sacred music of Armenia. Now based in Los Angeles, the prodigious jazz pianist has held on to the melodies of his homeland with solemnity and patience for this project. The antiquity of much of the repertoire—hymns, sharakans (chants), and cantos, some of which date back to the fifth century—leaves room for improvisation, which evidence suggests has been a part of its living tradition for centuries. Hamasyan takes to this freedom like a wing to wind, using his polyphonic arrangements of monophonic melodies as runways for spontaneous flights. He has intentionally left the piano parts unwritten, so that by following only skeletal structures he is free to move about the score.
(Photo credit: Vahan Stepanyan)
The album’s title (Light from Light) is primarily descriptive, revealing the process of pulling out an interpretive glow from contemporary compositions, and from the older ones embers of bygone devotions. It also signals themes of variation in a program built around multiple incarnations of the core melodies. The preludinal “Ov Zarmanali” (Oh this Amazing and Great Mystery) by 12th-century catholicos and composer Grigor G. Pahlavuni, for example, illuminates the listener’s ears first through a solo piano treatment, like snow falling from the branches of a godly tree, and later in the album in a veritable river of voices. The Yerevan State Chamber Choir’s balance of raw technique and rhythmic precision indicates a vulnerability diminished by numbers. Hamasyan’s pianism takes on a regular role here, sounding its arpeggios with veracity. The modal changes speak to something deeper than beauty, to the heart within it darkened by neglect. Midway through the singers fade and leave the piano to move jazzily through their afterimages, only to return like objects of worship polished smooth over centuries of devotion. “Sirt im Sasani” (My Heart is Trembling!), a canticle by 13th-century canonical writer Mkhitar Ayrivanetsi (c. 1230-1297) also reveals its mercies through two iterations, the second of which is a piano variation of Trinitarian dimension, while the first professes faith through the distant mechanisms of exile. Bass soloist Seiran Avagyan renders a flower of textual identity shedding petals in favor of bodiless light.
(Photo credit: Vahan Stepanyan)
No such project would be complete without Komitas (1869-1935), because of whose efforts much of Armenia’s sacred music has been preserved. His “Hayrapetakan Maghterg” (Patriarchal Ode), a hymnal request to be heard and absolved, takes three forms. In two Hamasyan-only versions, the pianist attends to the words between notes. He is keenly aware of these spaces and gathers strength through their collective presence. Like the pages of a thumb-worn Bible, its gilding has faded through absorption, finding in its choral life a treasure of grace and, in soprano soloist Jenni Nazaryan, a dove clutching sprigs of gratitude. From Komitas’s Armenian Holy Mass we encounter two sections, “Surb Astvats” (Holy God) and “Orhnyal e Astvats” (Blessed is God), each based on melodies from the seventh century. Where the former is driven by forward-thinking improvisation, the latter looks backward by sampling tenor Armenak Shahmuradyan. This 1912 archival recording, made in Paris in the presence of Komitas, defines the palette from which the choir draws its colors over a century later.
Medieval theologian and hymnologist Mesrop Mashtots (c. 362-440) is represented in two chants and a canticle for Fasting Days. The first of these, “Ankanim araji Qo” (I Kneel Before You), is where the choir makes its album entrance—or should I say “in-trance,” for such is its state of being. Therein, singers descend to the bottoms of their linguistic wells, making dervish circles until the shadows are cleansed. Each is a powerful statement of redemption, of the will to drown in transgression so that one might be reborn into sobriety.
For the singly rendered, Hamasyan offers two cantos of the Resurrection, both chanted during Divine Liturgy. “Nor Tsaghik” (New Flower) by Nerses Shnorhali (c. 1102-1173) strikes difference through its use of prepared piano, at which Hamasyan uncovers hidden voices behind the voices, while “Havoun Havoun” (The Bird, the Bird was Awake) by Grigor Narekatsi (c. 951-1003) pairs soprano and piano in the name of faith. Nazaryan’s lone singing barely grazes the belly of the nearest cloud until the nourishment of Heaven comes raining forth, leaving us to drink in what we can.
Those who would write off this recording on the sole basis of its description—Do we really, they might say, need another jazz musician improvising over a vocal ensemble?—may be pleasantly surprised at the level of integration achieved on Luys i Luso. Like Misha Alperin, Hamasyan recognizes the dedication of knowledge required to mesh with equally disciplined singers. Whether broken or healed, each of his selections embodies the fragmentary nature of things as a path to wholeness. The sheer love pouring from that wholeness is proof of concept.
An unexpected masterpiece, and one of ECM’s most astonishing in years.
(To hear samples of Luys i Luso, please click here. Further information about the project is available here.)
My full report of the unprecedented two-night ECM concert event as part of New York City’s 2016 Winter Jazzfest is now available over at All About Jazz. Click on the photo below to read all about it.
For those of you in or near the New York City area, don’t miss an unprecedented two nights of American ECM artists at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium (63 5th Avenue, between 14th and 13th Streets) this Friday and Saturday, January 15 and 16. I’ll be there to review the entire event for All About Jazz. Below is the full schedule, along with a video statement from Manfred Eicher about ECM’s historical connections to the American milieu.
Friday January 15: 6:00 – David Torn (solo) 7:00 – Mark Turner Quartet (w/Avishai Cohen, Joe Martin & Marcus Gilmore) 8:00 – Craig Taborn (solo) 9:00 – Avishai Cohen Quartet (w/Jason Lindner, Tal Mashiach & Nasheet Waits) 10:00 – Ches Smith / Craig Taborn / Mat Maneri 11:20 – Vijay Iyer Trio (w/Stephan Crump & Marcus Gilmore) 12:40 – David Virelles’ Mbókò (w/Román Díaz, Eric McPherson & Matt Brewer)
Saturday January 16: 6:00 – Michael Formanek’s Ensemble Kolossus 7:20 – Theo Bleckmann’s Elegy (w/Shai Maestro, Ben Monder, Chris Tordini & John Hollenbeck) 8:40 – Chris Potter Quartet (w/David Virelles, Joe Martin & Marcus Gilmore) 10:00 – Tim Berne’s Sideshow (w/Ralph Alessi, Matt Mitchell, John Hébert & Dan Weiss) 11:20 – Ralph Alessi Quartet (w/David Virelles, Drew Gress & Nasheet Waits) 12:40 – Ethan Iverson-Mark Turner Duo
Thomas Strønen drums, electronics, percussion, moog, fender rhodes Iain Ballamy saxophones, electronics
with Christian Fennesz guitar, electronics
Recorded June 2013 at Holand Sound, Oslo
Recording producer: Thomas Striven
Engineer: Ulf Holland
Mixed February 2015 at Holand Sound, Oslo by Ulf Holand, Manfred Eicher, and Thomas Striven
Mastered at MSM Studio, Munich by Christoph Stickel and Manfred Eicher
An ECM Production
U.S. release date: November 20, 2015
For its third ECM course, the duo of Thomas Strønen (drums, electronics, percussion, Moog, Fender Rhodes) and Iaian Ballamy (saxophones, electronics), known together as Food, serves up its most introspective chunk of nourishment yet. With assistance from Christian Fennesz (guitar, electronics), who last guested on Mercurial Balm, the project burrows even deeper into its lyrical universe with atmospheric phasers set to stun.
Under the creative disclosure of This is not a miracle, Strønen has taken to crafting every piece using elements culled from hours of studio improvisation with the musicians and producer Ulf Holand, whose hand was so gorgeously evident in Nils Petter Molvær’s Khmer. Strønen admits to starting more often with a structural rather than melodic idea before cutting the music, in his words, “to the bone.” Cutting is precisely the word, as linear utterances became spliced, looped, and restructured into fully fledged, standalone grooves.
It would be tempting, once the distorted guitar and muffled bass beats of “First Sorrow” pulse their way into the mind’s ear, to place the origins of this music at a far remove from Earth, when really it is torn from the book of an internal cosmos. Brushed with fire and written in ashes, its pages glow with the allure of a sere orthography in “Where Dry Desert Ends,” making even this unforgiving territory feel like cashmere on winter skin. Drums add their skipping traction to the dunes, while synthesizer and saxophone cut the sky with their cloudless scissors. A marked shift in viewpoint flushes heat as if through an emotional exhaust system of continental proportions, turning the emptiness of sunset inside out as a gift for the coming dawn.
Much of what awakens thereafter draws its nutrients from somewhere between this planet’s surface and its core, a comfort zone of difference and sculpted time. Whether whirling in the title track’s dervish circles or overlapping reeds in “Death Of Niger,” crunching through the detritus of “Sinking Gardens Of Babylon” or drifting over “The Concept Of Density,” just high enough to traverse the highest mountains yet low enough to ingest the detail of every village below, genetics bleed through every joining of head and tail with the power of unifying color.
Whatever the means at hand, lineage remains at the forefront of Strønen’s sound-world. Khmer kinship is strongest in “Exposed To Frost,” of which Fennesz’s biwa-like twangs imply another world within, while the drumming of “Earthly Carriage” and “Without The Laws” has the tuneful attention of label mate Manu Katché. His simple guidance is as shifting as the sand of an hourglass, pulling notes by gravity into mountainous ends. Similarly, “The Grain Mill” seeks the chicken in the egg. This glitch-laden lullaby enables a searing emergence from Fennesz, who tears through the veil of dreams into waking reality, where coronas whip themselves in place of lovers drowning in self-regard.
Whatever poetry This is not a miracle might inspire, it is, as the title implies, a practically molded object. The band has since taken these constructions as cohesive compositions, performing them as such in live concerts. But their democratic foundation remains audibly intact, and is perhaps the greatest force keeping them from being sucked into the black hole of countless other albums vying for your attention. This one tugs as the moon does the ocean, leaving shores refreshed and glistening beneath its light.
(To hear samples of This is not a miracle, please click here.)
Keith Jarrett piano Gary Peacock bass Jack DeJohnette drums DVD 1
Recorded live in Tokyo, July 25, 1993 at Open Theater East
Director: Kaname Kawachi
Recorded by Toshio Yamanaka
Produced by Yasuhiko Sato
Executive producers: Hisao Ebine and Toshinari Koinuma DVD 2
Recorded live in Tokyo, March 30, 1996 at Hitomi Memorial Hall
Director: Kaname Kawachi
Recorded by Toshio Yamanaka
Produced by Yasuhiko Sato
Executive producers: Hisao Ebine and Toshinari Koinuma
Concerts produced by Koinuma Music
It’s one thing to hear, but quite another to see, the Keith Jarrett Trio in action. For those unable to do so in a live setting, this two-DVD release is the next best thing. Like the Standards I/II set that precedes it, this one was recorded in Tokyo, but puts about a decade between those first Japan performances.
A 1993 gig at Open Theater East takes place in the heart of a sweltering summer. The air shines both with the music and with the rain that forces a large and dedicated audience to listen from beneath ponchos, and the musicians to play from beneath a clear canopy. The video quality is much finer this time around, and despite a rocky start born of technical issues and the weather, captures one of the trio’s finest sets available on any medium.
What separates this concert from the others available on DVD is the openness of the band’s aura. Jarrett more than ever plays for his appreciative listeners because he understands the bond into which nature has pushed them. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Jarrett’s The Köln Concert also famously began in the least ideal of conditions. Clearly, the pressure set him on an unprecedented creative path. And so, even as the trio struggles to feel out the climate in Dave Brubeck’s “In Your Own Sweet Way” (throughout which Jarrett must often wipe down the keyboard with a towel), all while latecomers snake to their seats, we can feel the groove emerging one muscle at a time. After the worldly touches of “Butch And Butch” and “Basin Street Blues,” we know that things have been set right.
Whereas in the previous Japan documents Peacock proved himself the man of the hour (although, to be sure, the breadth of his architectures in “If I Were A Bell” and “I Fall In Love Too Easily” are as masterful as they come), it’s DeJohnette who produces the deepest hues of this rainbow. His sticks make evergreens like Sonny Rollins’s “Oleo” that much greener, and turn a 26-minute rendition of Miles Davis’s “Solar,” combined with Jarrett’s “Extension,” into a downright sacred space.
As with the 1986 concert on Standards I/II, the trio ends on three encores: “Bye Bye Blackbird,” Jarrett’s “The Cure,” and “I Thought About You.” In all of this one can sense a quiet storm of commitment to the music that flows from within. Melodies breathe, reborn, requiring open hearts to know their graces.
The year 1996 brings us to Hitomi Memorial Hall, where Jarrett and friends jump fully refreshed into “It Could Happen To You.” As always, Jarrett’s lyrical intro reveals little about the mosaics soon to follow. He takes the theme and its surrounding chords as a starting point down densely textured corridors. Which is, of course, what improvisation is all about: dungeon crawling without a map yet knowing that a destination will wrap its arms around you eventually. Jarrett seems to unravel every possible path into its fullest and on through the ballad “Never Let Me Go,” in which the pianist transcends the status of storyteller to that of myth keeper.
“Billie’s Bounce” is a staple not only for its composer, Charlie Parker, but also for Jarrett. As one of his prime expressive spaces, it layers all the bread and butter that make his art so nourishing. But we mustn’t forget that each member of this unit is equally important. In “Summer Night,” Peacock’s gentility is Jarrett’s flame, shining like the moon with a song to sing, and DeJohnette’s opening to “I’ll Remember April” shows a drummer with just as much to say from the bedrock, even as Jarrett evolves in real time through every change in the rapids above.
Other standbys such as “Mona Lisa” and crowd favorite “Autumn Leaves” open as many new avenues as they retread. With a crispness of feeling, Jarrett grabs the spotlight, while lively soloing from Peacock and fancy brushwork from DeJohnette make the picture whole. Even the familiar strains of “Last Night When We Were Young” become something new when they melt into Jarrett’s groovier “Carribean Sky.” It’s what one can always count on with this trio: playing as if for the first time.
The Bud Powell tune “John’s Abbey” commands from the sidelines as Peacock and DeJohnette go from canter to gallop and sets off a rapid-fire succession of closing tunes. A touching rendition of “My Funny Valentine” falls like a tear of quiet joy into Jarrett’s “Song,” in which the musicians open a book you always meant, and at last have the chance, to read again. “All The Things You Are” and Ray Bryant’s lesser-heard “Tonk” end the set with a satiating balance of delights. Nothing added, nothing taken away.
Keith Jarrett piano Gary Peacock bass Jack DeJohnette drums DVD 1
Recorded live in Tokyo, February 15, 1985 at Koseinenkin Hall
Director: Kaname Kawachi
Recorded and mixed by Toshio Yamanaka
Production coordinator: Toshinari Koinuma
Produced by Masafumi Yamamoto
Executive producer: Hisao Ebine DVD 2
Recorded live in Tokyo, October 26, 1986 at Hitomi Memorial Hall
Director: Kaname Kawachi
Recorded and mixed by Seigen Ono
Production coordinator: Toshinari Koinuma
Produced by Masafumi Yamamoto
Executive producer: Hisao Ebine
Concerts produced by Koinuma Music
Standards I/II is an invaluable two-DVD archive of the Keith Jarrett Trio’s inaugural tours of Japan. The first, recorded at Tokyo’s Koseinenkin Hall on 15 February 1985, offers the pianist at his heartfelt best in an intro as tender as a drizzling rain. So begins a smooth version of “I Wish I Knew,” through the lens of which bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette illuminate the spectrum of this format like few others can. What distinguishes them, as made clear in this concert opener, is their consistent ability to surprise. Sure, the technical prowess required to carry off such florid versions of “If I Should Lose You” and “It’s Easy To Remember” is formidable to say the least, but how much more virtuosity there is to be savored in the ballads. The night-laden memories of “Late Lament” add softness to the set list’s emerging palette, even as they whisper in a language as crystalline as all the rest. This is a diamond in which every occlusion represents an opportunity for clarity. “Stella By Starlight” starts with Peacock and Jarrett emoting in space and time without allegiance to either, working into a 14-minute groove so sublime that it melts.
To be sure, the more upbeat tunes have a crispness all their own. “If I Should Lose You” finds Jarrett listening intently to his bandmates, who exchange tactile glances in anticipation of DeJohnette’s rolling play. But whether the drummer is riding the rails in “It’s Easy To Remember” or adding choice accents to a diagonal “God Bless The Child,” he leaves plenty of room for his audience to grow in kind.
Jarrett originals such as “Rider” and “Prism” showcase his penchant for gospel and Byzantine grooves. In these tunes the band reaches a high point of synchronicity, working a detail-oriented art into a genre all its own. Even the lighter “So Tender” retains full emotional accuracy, going all in via Peacock’s supernal melodizing. All of which leads to sixteen and a half minutes of soulful unpacking in “Delaunay’s Dilemma.” Peacock fascinates again in his soloing toward the finish line, while DeJohnette sings even as he punches his way toward bluesy victory.
The second Japan concert was recorded at Hitomi Memorial Hall, also in Tokyo, on 26 October 1986. This standards extravaganza is the regression to the previous concert’s progression, but loses no sense of integrity for its introversion. “You Don’t Know What Love Is” eases into things with sweeping finesse such as only Jarrett can pull off. It is followed by “With A Song In My Heart,” the meditation of which morphs into some solid invigorations. Peacock and DeJohnette share a flawless rapport, the drummer popping off that snare like a machine gun.
So begins an alternating pattern of valleys and peaks, which by the end leave behind an even more cohesive program than the first. We next dip down into a tune the trio plays like no one else: “When You Wish Upon A Star.” Jarrett’s rendering makes even the most familiar blossom anew with emotional honesty. The mastery on display in this quintessential example is as pliant as Peacock’s strings, and carries over into the interlocking tempi of “All Of You.” For this, the bassist leaps forward with the first of two solos, moving from robust to filigreed without loss of syncopation.
The bassist turns out to be the sun of this solar system, lathering a mysterious yet lucid “Georgia On My Mind” and a duly nostalgic “When I Fall In Love” with enough light to spare in conversation with his bandmates. DeJohnette, for his part, airbrushes the night sky in “Blame It On My Youth” and lets the groove be known behind “Love Letters.” And in tandem with Jarrett, he feeds magic into the masterstroke of “You And The Night And The Music.” Unforgettable.
Each of the three encores—“On Green Dolphin Street,” “Woody ’n You,” and “Young And Foolish”—is a virtuosic gem set to twinkling and reminds us that Jarrett and his associates came this far only by selecting their divergences lovingly.
Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond 