Jazz

Steve Kuhn Trio: Wisteria (ECM 2257)

| Tyran Grillo

Wisteria

Steve Kuhn Trio
Wisteria

Steve Kuhn piano
Steve Swallow bass
Joey Baron drums
Recorded Sptember 2011 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James A. Farber
Assistant: Tim Marchiafava
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Pianist Steve Kuhn, bassist Steve Swallow, and drummer Joey Baron make sweet music together, for sure, but an unquantifiable feel for that music is what sets this dream trio apart, and nowhere so clearly as in the lion’s share of Kuhn’s tunes presented on Wisteria. The complexities thereof become more readily apparent in these core settings. Above all, “Adagio” reveals a triangle within a triangle within a triangle. First is Baron’s sparkling pool, next bordered by Swallow’s equilateral bassing, all molded by Kuhn’s resounding redraws, and with a multi-dimensional sound enhanced to crystalline effect by engineer James Farber, fewer geometries could be more sublime. Further gems last heard on Promises Kept include the study in contrasts that is “Morning Dew,” the lyrical “Pastorale” (then again, when is Kuhn not lyrical?), and that album’s title cut, which achieves here even greater densities than in the former’s orchestral couch.

Wisteria is not without its groovier moments (cf. “A Likely Story”), but tends toward the softer end of the spectrum whenever possible. This only serves to gel the intensity of emotion throughout. Exemplary in this regard is the album’s opener, “Chalet,” in which the trio’s mesh sets a unified tone. It also reveals the inimitable presence of Swallow, whose early solo unlocks much of the joy about to ensue, and whose two contributions—“Dark Glasses” and “Good Lookin’ Rookie”—span the horizon from solemn to ecstatic, sunset ochre to raindrop blue, with class.

Three standalone tracks complete the set. Carla Bley’s “Permanent Wave” lays on the nostalgia so thick that you’ll swear you heard it a long time ago, with a drink in hand and only a memory to keep you company. “Romance” (by Brazilian singer-songwriter Dory Caymmi) brims with blind affection and proves yet again just how masterfully Kuhn approaches the art of the finish. And then there is the title track by Art Farmer, in whose band Kuhn and Swallow played half a century ago. This shadow-swept reverie says it all with so little.

Wisteria is about as positive as jazz gets. So much so that one can feel the smiles rippling all around as one pebble after another is dropped into the sacred font of improvisation from which each of these musicians so artfully drinks, and with enough tenderness to go around for even the most resilient soul.

(To hear samples of Wisteria, click here.)

Stefano Battaglia Trio: The River of Anyder (ECM 2151)

| Tyran Grillo

The River of Anyder

Stefano Battaglia Trio
The River of Anyder

Stefano Battaglia piano
Salvatore Maiore double-bass
Roberto Dani drums
Recorded November 2009, Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Stefano Battaglia always seems to have a root planted in mythical worlds. Where often he embraces those worlds as hidden inspirations, here the Italian pianist turns them inside out, yielding the journey that is The River of Anyder. Named for the river of Thomas More’s Utopia, the word “Anyder” is a pun meaning “waterless.” Like the music spun from its current, it embodies a contradiction between word and action. With this in mind, we might very well dismiss this album’s track titles altogether, for they mark not a mapping but a deconstruction of space by way of melody and affect.

Battaglia 1

We may indeed recognize “Minas Tirith” as the capital of Gondor in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and imagine its fortress hewn in white rock. But then we might miss out on the music’s decidedly ashen palette, the wide-mouthed net of shadows cast by Battaglia’s ascending arpeggios in unity with bassist Salvatore Maiore, or the cymbals of drummer Roberto Dani rattling like coins in a giant’s pocket. We may hear the poetry of Rumi suffused in “Ararat Dance” and “Ararat Prayer,” risking too deep a reading by ignoring their already ornate surfaces, the standalone evocations of Maiore’s bassing, or the gilding of inaction that holds it all together.

We may get swept away by two tracks referencing the mythical island of Bensalem in Sir Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, but fail to see that the trio’s interactions at moments leave the earth altogether. From the soft padding of his left hand to the tireless runs of his right, Battaglia navigates a profoundly varied topography with the freedom of one who walks without compass, who stops the wind and redirects it with every step taken. Whether contemplating the prayerful disposition of Hildegard von Bingen in the droning “Sham-bha-lah” or rowing the currents of the title track, Battaglia and his bandmates somehow slingshot around the dark side of the moon every time, placing them far from where they started.

Perhaps the only unity between spirit and production is “Anywhere Song.” This defining track concludes the set with a vision from Oglala Sioux Black Elk, who from atop the highest mountain sees all children of earth under one tree. It is, perhaps, the album’s deepest message: that in this tangle of keys, strings, and sticks, something so humble as a so-called jazz trio can look beyond its means and into the face of origins that compels those means to begin with. These are musicians who tell story and scripture alike.

The River of Anyder, then, is more than a catalogue of allusions. It is a pacifist’s statement, a bid for peace for a world in pieces.

(To hear samples of The River of Anyder, click here.)

Ketil Bjørnstad: Remembrance (ECM 2149)

| Tyran Grillo

 

Remembrance

Ketil Bjørnstad
Remembrance

Ketil Bjørnstad piano
Tore Brunborg tenor saxophone
Jon Christensen drums
Recorded September 2009 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Ketil Bjørnstad’s Remembrance came together at the suggestion of producer Manfred Eicher, who convened the Norwegian pianist-composer in the studio with legendary drummer Jon Christensen and master saxophonist Tore Brunborg for a set of 11 naturally unfolding ballads. Although Bjørnstad and Christensen had famously worked together on The Sea, and despite the music’s arpeggiated undercurrents, the feeling is not so much of water as of sky, with a touch of horizon for reference. Certain portions (Part V, for example) may approach the coast, but their vessels ultimately skim cloud and vapor, not ocean.

Interactions between the three musicians are globular and free-forming, but root themselves in Bjørnstad and Christensen (it was a recording of them, in fact, that inspired Eicher’s vision of this project to begin with). And so, by the time we encounter their gorgeous duetting in Part VI, we know that we have reached the true heart of the album—not only for being the numerical middle but also for distilling a vision of textural clarity. Here, as throughout, Bjørnstad’s soft backpedaling gives full attention to the drummer’s sunglow. Christensen drums with characteristic impressionism, but also with a sense of voice that few others bring to the kit. Parts VII and IX explore further possibilities in the duo, each attuned to the adaptive forces of the other’s creative play.

Despite the musicians’ ability to paint with luminescent urgencies, the trio settings are most unified at a whisper. Brunborg’s reed stretches a tether between emotional territories in the remaining tracks, each more lyrical, more soulful, than the last, until their nostalgic petals break bud in the aerials of Part XI. The songs with Brunborg are also the album’s tenderest. It’s as if the addition of a distinctly air-born voice elicits a ripple effect of empathy from the two percussion instruments, a regression into childhood sensibilities. And yet, beautiful as the melodies are, Remembrance is a must-have for fans of Christensen. If you’ve ever laid stick to cymbal, you’ll know why.

(To hear samples of Remembrance, click here.)

Paul Motian: Lost In A Dream (ECM 2128)

| Tyran Grillo

Lost In A Dream

Paul Motian
Lost In A Dream

Chris Potter tenor saxophone
Jason Moran piano
Paul Motian drums
Recorded live February 2009 at the Village Vanguard, New York
Engineer: James A. Farber
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Drummer Paul Motian, saxophonist Chris Potter, and pianist Jason Moran: the kind of dream you want to get lost in. This equilateral triangle of melody, form, and affect came together at Motian’s behest for a week of performances at New York’s Village Vanguard, from which he and producer Manfred Eicher culled the present disc. These live morsels reflect a cross-section of Motian’s career as both performer (by this point having shared about a decade of history with Potter and a single performance with Moran) and composer (all the tunes, some new and some old, are by Motian, except for a sweet take on Irving Berlin’s “Be Careful It’s My Heart”).

Among the album’s many benefits, it’s particularly wonderful to hear Potter, a player known for his robust command and dynamism, emote with such artful delicacy. In both “Birdsong” (last heard on TATI, in the company of Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani) and “Mode VI,” Potter elicits tons of emotional power by his restraint. In the latter tune especially, which opens the album with a whisper, he fans the trio’s creative pilot light in pastels and charcoals. He also knows when to set the horn aside, letting Moran and Motian play on as a duo, drums brushing away the piano’s footprints in a dance as melodic as anything elicited at the keyboard. Motian is indeed the core of this music’s being, turning on a ballerina’s toe in a light made audible by breath, reed, and chamber.

If not obvious already, Motian and his bandmates are as much painters as they are musicians. Their evocative skills turn simple titles like “Casino” and “Blue Midnight” into moving pictures. A lone figure sits at the betting table, a losing hand before him. The only real comfort comes from the piano bar, the music of which slices through his inebriation like a paper cut, an Ace of Spades flicked toward the heart, where it remains lodged in hopes that something other than its pip might bleed. The looseness of such moments best exemplifies the photo montage on the album’s cover, which teases out regularity from city streets. (At one point, Potter and Moran lapse into simple scales, as if to remind themselves that even abstraction begins with practice.) Here is where the musculature of the trio becomes paramount, as tactile as its subject matter is ethereal.

The title track is the most grounded tune. Moran’s playing is sumptuous here. The gently insistent rhythm hints at swing, but shelves catharsis for another day. “Ten,” by comparison, ups the heat with a bubbling, rubato energy that draws the crowd. It is the exhale to the inhale of “Drum Music” and “Abacus,” established tunes that reference Motian’s classic Le Voyage. Where one unleashes a torrent of startlingly fractal music, the other cradles the most masterful turn of the set in the form of Motian’s solo. Bookended by thematic confirmations, it is the genius of an artist speaking as one with his instrument rather than through it. It lingers on the palate long after the finish, drawn through the concluding “Cathedral Song” beneath the skim of Moran’s night sailing and Potter’s hymnal moon.

This trio, in this context, emotes so tenderly that it might collapse in on itself were it not for the strength of its bones. It speaks to us as it speaks to the cosmos: without the need for translation. Your body comes pre-equipped to decode its poetry, and when you buy this album, you are giving yourself a sacred gift. If you love jazz, then do your heart some good and bring these sounds home. A masterpiece, pure and simple.

Stefano Battaglia/Michele Rabbia: Pastorale (ECM 2120)

| Tyran Grillo

Pastorale

Pastorale

Stefano Battaglia piano, prepared piano
Michele Rabbia percussion, electronics
Recorded September 2008 at Artesuono Studio, Udine
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher

An album of piano and percussion duets may seem unusual, but, by the time of this recording, pianist Stefano Battaglia had been playing with the form for well over a decade. With Michele Rabbia he has spun a core thread, but always in the tapestries of his ensemble projects. With the release of Pastorale, that thread blossoms into a quilt of its own making. Most fascinating about the duo, in this context, is a mutual willingness to expand their sound into digitally enhanced territories.

Coincidentally or not, Rabbia’s organic electronics haunt only the religiously titled tracks. “Monasterium” walks a tightrope between light and dark toward a perfect balance of the two in a way demonstrated also by the album as a whole. The mesh of foregrounded piano and metallic overlay in “Oracle” hints at a wealth of introspection in the distance, visible but unreachable. “Spirits of Myths” furthers this marriage of the living dark, burning low, muted preparations of the piano in the sun and sparkle of Rabbia’s circuitry, conferring a shared inner core as Battaglia and Rabbia become distortions of themselves. Over time, they seek reflection in dialogues between light and metallic surfaces: the clasp of an old Bible; a doorknob polished by decades of turning; a ring that, once worn, is never taken off. By contrast, the atmosphere of “Kursk Requiem” is thick and submarine. The piano marks the procession of technological voices in high-pitched feedback whispers, looping even as they fragment. Even the album’s opening “Antifona libera” (dedicated to Enzo Bianchi, Prior of the Monastic Community of Bose in northern Italy) with its resonance hints at a mercy as resolute as it is mysterious.

On that note, the track “Metaphysical Consolations” might just as well have yielded the album’s title, for it best describes the processes of communication it entails. As it stands, the actual title track practices more than it preaches. Its prepared piano nets drums and gongs, rumbling and singing by turns, seeking flesh through abstraction and in that flesh a feeling of divine order. In this instance alone, it seems, Battaglia’s dissonance is more an expression of tactility than of distortion, giving the ears purchase in a crumbling scene, his right hand the insistent traveler whose map grows with each fearless step. In similar exploratory spirit, the duo mines folk veins in the smoother, jazzier “Candtar del alma” and the modally inflected “Sundance in Balkh.” Even the fully improvised “Tanztheater,” named for the style created by its dedicatee, choreographer Pina Bausch (also the subject of a 2011 documentary by Wim Wenders), carves tunnels beneath the driven architectures above, and with them the possibility of caving in at any moment. Such proximity to destruction confers on the music an emblem of honesty that reduces the act of creation to a skeleton and composes its blood anew.

Tord Gustavsen Ensemble: Restored, Returned (ECM 2107)

| Tyran Grillo

Restored, Returned

Tord Gustavsen Ensemble
Restored, Returned

Tord Gustavsen piano
Tore Brunborg tenor and soprano saxophones
Kristin Asbjørnsen vocals
Mats Eilertsen double-bass
Jarle Vespestad drums
Recorded January 2009 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Restored! Returned! The lost are borne
On seas of shipwreck home at last:
See! In a fire of praising burns
The dry dumb past, as we
Our life-day long shall part no more.
–W. H. Auden, “Warm are the Still and Lucky Miles”

Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen, who prior to Restored, Returned released three of ECM’s most beloved trio albums, now adds to that tapestry the lyrical threads of saxophonist Tore Brunborg and, in her first appearance on the label, vocalist Kristin Asbjørnsen. Gustavsen, who additionally switches out bassist Harald Johnsen for Mats Eilertsen and holds on to drummer Jarle Vespestad, styles the album as a “collection of cherished memories” rather than as a unified whole and consequently backgrounds himself a little in order to let his collaborators glow unobstructed.

Tord

Although a fascinating addition to the Gustavsen nexus, Asbjørnsen’s rendering of poetry by W. H. Auden may guide listeners down forking paths. Her tone is closest to Sweden’s Karin Dreijer Andersson (best known for her associations with Röyksopp): which is to say, an enchanting mixture of childlike vulnerability and strength beyond her years. With the very balance of clarity and mystery that Gustavsen attributes to Auden’s verses, Asbjørnsen engenders a chain of invitations to higher understandings of the same. Which is perhaps why the album more frequently concerns itself with wordless poetries in the form of intimate cradlesongs. Some, such as the three so-called “Left Over Lullabies,” are more obviously of this kind. In them, Asbjørnsen emerges gently, organically, gathering nebulous strands into themes, which Brunborg then unpacks in riverbed flow. In these instances, Asbjørnsen’s grammar is entrancing and works best when she adlibs with Gustavsen alone, crafting melody out of her own stardust rather than ink on the page. Other lullabies—namely, “The Child Within,” “Spiral Song,” and “The Gaze”—have reeds in mind. In all three, the piano spins a cocoon of introduction, letting Brunborg’s motives break wing of their own accord.

The surrounding songs dip forthrightly into the poetic font. Whether in the gospelly “Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love,” the folkish diptych of “The Swirl / Wrapped In A Yielding Air,” or the fully developed “Your Crooked Heart,” Asbjørnsen’s throaty delivery feels grounded in love at every moment. She embraces daybreak through Auden’s words, touched by supporting musicianship that finds power not in strength but nuance of force, a force by which the expressive minutiae of experience drink sun without fear of cloud. The title track is likewise a stirring of photosynthetic impulses, growing by a season that abides by its own philosophy of recovery.

For those new to Gustavsen, start at Changing Places and work your way here. Like the fully improvised instrumental “Way In,” his art builds doorways of entry one cell at a time, so that by the time the full body is born, we are already a part of it. The songs may indeed be isolated, but they also yearn for continuity with past and future voices, holding scriptures on the tongue for grace of unity. This journey is far from over.

(To hear samples of Restored, Returned, click here.)

Rik Wright’s Fundamental Forces: Red

| Tyran Grillo

Red

“Passion is an unstable molecule. A universe of energy itching to be released.” So says the foldout sleeve of Red, the second disc in a trilogy of colors by poet and guitarist Rik Wright. It’s an apt description of the relationship he has for years now shared with multi-instrumentalist James DeJoie (reeds and flute), bassist Geoff Harper, and drummer-percussionist Greg Campbell. As Fundamental Forces, this fearless foursome excavates the circle first drawn in Blue (released 2013 on Hipsync Records) with even finer tools in hand. Whereas that predecessor looked into the crystal ball of the future, this sequel dips into the font of the past and emerges baptized in new directions.

There’s almost nothing about the guitar-bass ostinato that begins “(She’s so) Fragmented” to indicate the itching universe about to unravel. But once the rhythm section takes over and allows for alto and guitar to carve out their groove, the album’s first of five deep cuts shows us just how much letting can be accomplished in 46 minutes of Earth time. DeJoie unhinges himself from the theme, plotting challenging geometries in contrast to Wright’s angelic beauties. This is where the pieces of the guitarist’s versifying fall formatively into place, not only laying the corner pieces but also gnawing at them until they begin to fray. Campbell shakes things up a bit, too, all the while remaining true to the core pulse.

After this nine-minute juggernaut, the skeletal geode that is “Yearning” veritably sparkles. Wrapped in Campbell’s loose timekeeping and Wright’s webbed guitar, it charts a detour along beauteous sonic paths. Although it is, at just over four minutes, the shortest track of the album, it is also its snaking heart, the chamber through which the surrounding tunes’ blood flows, from which it exits, and to which it returns. Next is “Subtle Energy,” which at 13 minutes reverts to the band’s epic comforts. Wright’s John Abercrombie-like intro casts a long, downtempo shadow and, like the album’s opener, spins from complacent beginnings a cosmic web of intrigue. Wright and his bandmates are so attuned to every shift of texture, proving their ascent to a new level of descriptive awareness.

The penultimate “Single Angularity” is a prime vehicle for DeJoie’s baritone. What seems an oxymoron in the title becomes organic in the music: what fails in language proliferates in art. The band journeys deepest for this one, rising and falling in unscripted fervor. If there is a particular immediacy of transmission here, it is because this and “Yearning” were both taken from a radio performance. Yet that same live presence thread pulls through the studio tracks as well, and especially in the concluding “Synesthesia,” a yielding vessel that drags its oars in a cinematic, David Lynchean stream of consciousness toward dreamy conclusions.

If Blue was a kaleidoscope, requiring light and vision for its patterns to thrive, then Red is a laser, boring into the earth, in need of darkness in order to glow, incisive and true. More than ever, Fundamental Forces is working like a team of archaeologists, brushing away the clinging dirt until their inspiration reveals an ancient heart.

(To preview and purchase Red, click here.)

Hristo Vitchev & Liubomir Krastev: Rhodopa

| Tyran Grillo

Rhodopa

Bulgaria-born, Bay Area-based guitarist Hristo Vitchev, having firmly established himself as a gentle giant in the contemporary jazz scene, seems always willing and able to reinvent himself while holding true to the integrity of his artistry. For Rhodopa, one of a prolific string of new releases, he joins clarinetist Liubomir Krastev in a unique duo setting of original tunes and Eastern European folk songs. The result is unquestionably Vritchev’s finest project to date. Some of his most perennial compositions, including “Silent Prayer” and “Blues for Clever Peter,” encroach upon the album’s roots-oriented landscape like sprigs of autumn foliage ready to let go of their branches. The latter tune especially shows the potential of this duo to turn a skeleton into a fully-fleshed body, rendering as it does a fluttering guitar ostinato as launching pad for Krastev, whose clarinet darts, soars, and dives without a trace of inhibition. The dynamic contrasts of “Devoiko Mari Hubava” (Beautiful Young Lady) likewise delineate fundament and firmament with clarity of vision. Vitchev’s steel-stringed harmonics stretch a canvas for Krastev’s fluid brushstrokes, bringing the music to new levels with the addition of a second (classical) guitar.

[youtube+https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=092ZFKKCSrU]

This is the first of the album’s largely Bulgarian songbook, in which the upbeat virtuosity of “Polegnala e Todora” (Todora Took a Nap) fits snugly between the lyrical pages of “Lale Li Si, Zyumbiul Li Si” (Are You a Tulip, Are You a Hyacinth) and “Hubava Si Moia Goro” (You Are My Beautiful Forest), the last two brimming with heart and poise.

Track lengths on Rhodopa range from one to ten and a half minutes, shortest in the two “Improvisations” by which the musicians dig deepest to the layers of tradition that inform their souls. There is, then, something about this music that speaks heart to heart. It is ancient yet also blossoms with new interpretive subtleties, welcoming us to dance and reflect by turns, knowing that spring is never far away, regardless of the season outside your window.

Joe DeRose and Amici: Peace Streets

| Tyran Grillo

Peace Streets

Following their 2010 debut, Sounds for the Soul, San Jose-based drummer Joe DeRose and his “amici” (friends) break out with their follow-up, Peace Streets. Fronted by guitarist Hristo Vitchev, saxophonist Dan Zinn, keyboardist Murray Low, and bassist Dan Robbins, DeRose presents an album of intelligence and nostalgia. Opener “New Frontiers,” in point of fact, establishes such an unmistakable Pat Metheny vibe that you may just want to start the car now so that you’re ready to hit the road once you press PLAY. Between Vitchev’s gentle voicings and Low’s synth textures, the music’s punctuations surround us with sunlight.

It’s a comfortable vantage point from which to survey the journey to come. With such memorable stops as the 70s-infused “Native Son” and the sweeping Latin groove of “The Spirit of the Room,” and from there the melodic stretches of highway laid by the funky “Smiles for Miles” and the gorgeously emphatic “In a Moment’s Time” (now entering the 80s), there’s much to admire along the way. Through all of it, DeRose’s bandmates make easy work of the changes. Vitchev emotes with virtuosic, snaking starlight, his constellations alive with an unwavering foreword gaze. Zinn commands with his remarkable tonal chops, knowing just when to lay back and when to turn up the heat. Low’s presence is as selective as it is integral. Like Vitchev, he is just as comfortable soloing as he is holding the front line. Robbins, for his part, digs deep, unearthing anchor after anchor. DeRose, too, continually switches places, flitting from side to side with finesse.

Zinn in particular proves himself a most chameleonic player. Whether donning his Lenny Pickett hat in the otherwise laid-back “So It Is!” or morphing into the Jan Garbarek-like register of “In a Single Breath,” he is careful to acclimate himself to the mood at hand. This full set of originals, all from DeRose and Vitchev, lends itself beautifully to this collective palette. Some of the most effective interactions, however, occur between Zinn and Vitchev, sparring playfully as they do in “Native Reprise.” Even the soft lighting of “After the Storm” does nothing to obscure their simpatico dialogues, which reach their most uninhibited levels on the concluding title track.

To be continued, I hope.