Jazz

Kenny Wheeler: A Long Time Ago (ECM 1691)

| Tyran Grillo

A Long Time Ago

Kenny Wheeler
A Long Time Ago

Kenny Wheeler flugelhorn
John Taylor piano
John Parricelli guitar
Derek Watkins trumpet
John Barclay trumpet
Henry Lowther trumpet
Ian Hamer trumpet
Pete Beachill trombone
Richard Edwards trombone
Mark Nightingale trombone
Sarah Williams bass trombone
David Stewart bass trombone
Tony Faulkner conductor
Recorded September 1997 and January 1998 at Gateway Studio, Kingston
Engineer: Steve Lowe
Produced by Evan Parker

A Long Time Ago takes another dip into the oceans explored on trumpeter-composer Kenny Wheeler’s Music For Large & Small Ensembles. Yet where that disc moved diaristically from one paragraph to another in an organic stream of consciousness, here the slant is toward Wheeler the essayist, toward his understanding of jazz as a space of melancholy theses.

At the album’s core is pianist John Taylor (whose years of experience with Wheeler in their Azimuth outfit with Norma Winstone bear clear fruit), guitarist John Parricelli (an eclectic talent whose dream of playing with Wheeler was at last realized with this recording), Derek Watkins (one of this project’s prime instigators), and Wheeler himself, who opts exclusively for flugelhorn. Aside from Taylor, there is no percussionist on the roster; only a sizable band of trumpets, trombones, and bass trombones. The resulting sound is multifarious, deep, and quintessentially Wheelerian.

Wheeler is a reassuring protagonist, and as he steps into the verdant morning fields of the album’s eponymous suite, painterly and brimming with feeling, he weaves a nostalgic tapestry of diamonds and circles. Between the lush arrangement and the synergistic nexus maintained by Taylor and Parricelli, the tone is generally somber and wood-grained. This does not, however, keep Wheeler from coloring outside the lines as the mood strikes him. These bright, squealing breaches are all the more vivid for their intermittence. “One Plus Three,” of which a second version ends the set on its most somber note, boasts further abstract moments in a distinct, naked voice.

If the album as a whole feels elegiac, then this feeling is brought home tenfold in “Ballad for a Dead Child,” a dirge which after a funereal intro opens into expansive duetting from Wheeler and Taylor. As the horns at large blend back in, they combine the here with the hereafter. While on a lonely train ride through twilit landscape in “Eight Plus Three,” the lively dream of “Alice My Dear” cracks its first smile. It is a smile of appreciation that sends positive energy into “Going for Baroque.” The latter has the quality of a royal fanfare and reveals the Renaissance sources that have long inspired Wheeler’s pen. It is also a vaulting segue into the “Gnu Suite,” which finds material from Wheeler’s ECM debut, Gnu High, dramatically re-imagined.

Wheeler is the photographer who, in a digital age, still prefers to step into a dark room, close the door, and let his music develop. His images embrace imperfections as a means of balancing all that is in focus. And so, while this is an album for brass lovers at heart and deserves a spot on any ECM collector’s shelf right next to the Surman/Warren Brass Project, it is also a prime example of how sound can transcend its means and become its own story.

<< Gudmundson/Möller/Willemark: Frifot (ECM 1690)
>> Eleni Karaindrou: Eternity and a Day (ECM 1692 NS)

John Abercrombie: Open Land (ECM 1683)

| Tyran Grillo

Open Land

John Abercrombie
Open Land

John Abercrombie guitar
Mark Feldman violin
Kenny Wheeler trumpet, flugelhorn
Joe Lovano tenor saxophone
Dan Wall organ
Adam Nussbaum drums
Recorded September 1998 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James Farber
Produced by Manfred Eicher

After a string of intriguing albums for ECM, John Abercrombie’s organ trio welcomes violinist Mark Feldman, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, and tenor man Joe Lovano into the fold for Open Land, a leader-penned session of unusual sound colors and depth. Like all great albums, it reveals more with each listen, so that its augmentations grow more inextricably fused as the music becomes more familiar. From the first lilt of Wheeler’s brass in “Just In Tune,” it’s clear that the increased number of musicians hones the band’s spirit at a microscopic level. To be sure, the rising tide spun by Nussbaum and Wall paints smooth expanse across which Abercrombie stretches his webs—a magic formula that served well in While We’re Young, Speak Of The Devil, and Tactics. By the same token, here the mirage falls inward, catching the phosphorescence of every solo in a jar of fireflies. Even in tracks like the far-reaching “Speak Easy,” Abercrombie builds a tower to the sun but unlike Icarus stops short and looks down at the world for a while, quietly musing to itself before regressing into its core. The lush grooves are still there (“Gimme Five”), as are the featurettes (“Little Booker” and “That’s For Sure”), and the horns coalesce beautifully in tracks like “Remember When.”

Yet it is Feldman whose presence pays highest dividends. A heartfelt take on Felix Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song” gives life to the violinist’s quivering mastication, which breathes anew in the crystalline acoustics of Avatar Studios. This track stands out also for the method of its soloing, which finds each musician echoing another in a perfect circle. Wall is particularly effervescent, bouncing from Abercrombie’s chording like a paddle ball. Feldman sandwiches a crunchy guitar center, sharing bursting thematic lines with downright mitochondrial energy. “Free Piece Suit(e)” is, however, the most fascinating little puzzle of this date and thus finds Feldman in his element, jumping from ecstatic cries to chromatic undertows in the blink of a bow. Nestled in Abercrombie’s network of nerves, he sings a life neurotic as if it were poetry to be savored.

<< Franz Schubert: Sonate B-Dur op. posth. D 960 (ECM 1682 NS)
>> Ketil Bjørnstad/David Darling: Epigraphs (ECM 1684)

Keith Jarrett: The Melody At Night, With You (ECM 1675)

| Tyran Grillo

The Melody At Night

Keith Jarrett
The Melody At Night, With You

Keith Jarrett piano
Recorded 1998 at Cavelight Studio
Engineer: Keith Jarrett
Produced by Keith Jarrett and Manfred Eicher

The Melody At Night, With You was my first Keith Jarrett solo album. And perhaps it was in a way for Jarrett, too. It interprets some of the greatest names in the American songbook—Duke Ellington, the Gershwins, Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern, Oscar Levant, among others—yet tells their stories as if we’ve never heard them before. More than just another standards album in absence of his trio, this is the pianist at his purest. He approaches the music as a composer approaches a blank staff: which is to say, with wonder.

At the time of this recording, Jarrett was diagnosed with what was then known as fibromyalgia, a condition that variously affects muscles and nerves, leaving sufferers chronically fatigued. This meant that Jarrett was unable to perform, and for a while his fingers never touched a key. This in the wake of his highly successful Tokyo ’96, released after the affliction had taken root. Yet surely nothing could staunch the pilot light from which he had borrowed so much flame in his career, and it was this, along with his love for wife Rose Anne (to whom the album bears dedication), that informed his return to playing. To call this album intimate would be an understatement, recorded as it was under cover of darkness, gently, sweetly. Skin thus shed, he is a cause without a rebel, open to the vision of love that holds us in our darkest hour.

The album divides songs internally, balancing contradictory impulses in elegant weave. Gone are the transcendent moonwalks of yore. In their place are gravid statements of purpose. From the contact of “I Loves You Porgy,” the physicality of his playing is immediately apparent as every stretch of sinew and bone works itself back into flexible life. Treading a fine line between linear melody and cloudbursts of chords, between song and circumstance, it is the Rosetta Stone for all that issues from its stirrings. “I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good” similarly mixes ecstasy into regret, thereby revealing a contradiction of love that cannot be shaken. Jarrett’s voice emerges, the groan of a waking giant. “Don’t Ever Leave Me” balances uncertainty and conviction by way of his fall-off-the-bone storytelling.

“Someone To Watch Over Me” sits at the fulcrum. An unadulterated gaze into the heart of things, it opens a window with every note and breathes light into the “Meditation” that flows from his touching rendition of “Blame It On My Youth.” With this one realizes, if not already, that something profound is going on—not only for the miraculous tinge of recovery that permeates, but also because of the way it emphasizes the vitality of music, as if it simply must be heard. This would also seem to be the message encoded into “Something To Remember You By.” Here the balance is of silt and crystal, while in “Be My Love” it is tears and laughter. “I’m Through With Love” ends on a bittersweet note, a fleeting coda that is anything but in its scope. Jarrett fleshes out the program with a pair of traditional favorites. In both, he pours his soul in the endings. What with the chromatic appliqué in the descending tail of “My Wild Irish Rose” and the string game of the heart that is “Shenandoah,” there is nothing more to do than close one’s eyes and breathe.

In this respect, The Melody At Night, With You is also a love letter to the songs themselves, for by the end the gift of performance gets lost in the billowing curtain of time, lingering as the memory of a dream, now dispelled in the morning light for an intensity that would otherwise obliterate us.

If this is where Jarrett’s heart lives, may it never die.

<< Charles Lloyd: Voice In The Night (ECM 1674)
>> András Schiff/Peter Serkin: Music for Two Pianos (ECM 1676/77 NS)

Bley/Peacock/Motian: Not Two, Not One (ECM 1670)

| Tyran Grillo

Not Two, Not One

Not Two, Not One

Paul Bley piano
Gary Peacock double-bass
Paul Motian drums
Recorded January 1998 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James Farber
Produced by Manfred Eicher

This album documents a monumental coming together of pianist Paul Bley, bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Paul Motian, a combination not seen on record since Paul Bley with Gary Peacock, laid down in 1963 and issued 1970 as ECM’s third release. Here the trio picks up where it left off some 35 years before, furthering a journey of deconstruction its members have since charted separately in various combinations. And combinations are really what this session is about, for the trio turns kaleidoscopically throughout, emphasizing certain angles over others in a constant shifting of crystals. One moment finds us mired in the quiet urban fantasies of “Don’t You Know,” in which Bley pours out every last drop from his flask of introspection, while the next tantalizes with “Fig Foot” (“Big Foot” by another name), last heard on Adventure Playground. Bley latterly dances like fire, erratic yet unified by elemental force, following a pattern that is beyond our ken. Peacock is duly inspired in his solo against a delicate swing from Motian, who stays the course with an effervescent washtub beat.

The album’s most notable soundings come from Bley’s pianism, which revels in the depths granted it by studio access to a Bösendorfer. Bley bathes in its open possibilities, moving from a sunny intro in “Not Zero – In Three Parts” to lively reveals of the instrument’s vibrating inner core. This touches off a spate of drums from Motian, whose own soliloquy takes root in the ethereal, and inspires from Peacock a solo that balances integrity with unruliness and ushers in the trio proper with bold progression. Bley’s zither-like touches tip the scales toward all-out swing. “Now” similarly digs low, forming a cascading and complex solo of bridge-cabled intensity. “Vocal Tracked” also finds Bley alone, this time pushing notes like pins into an entomologist’s specimen board. Peacock likewise enchants with “Entelechy,” an elliptical solo track that shows a master at work. He further contributes two tunes: the pirouetted “Intente” and the restless marginalia of “Set Up Set.” Each turns itself like a sentient children’s top, waiting for the moment when its inertia will falter.

Yet together is how the trio shines. In “Noosphere” they work as one amorphous blob, carefree yet passionate. A many-petaled solo from Peacock bespeaks an undaunted hand, thereby flinging the veil of obscurity in favor of transparent expression against Motian’s profound susurrations. And after a luxurious dip in the balladic waters of “Dialogue Amour,” the trio tightens the drawstring with “Not Zero – In One Part,” a brief and burrowing coda.

These three sages of modern jazz neither break down borders nor blaze trails. Rather, they ignore those borders altogether and shape their music as it comes: bare yet flavorful enough to shock your taste buds into bliss.

<< Giya Kancheli: Magnum Ignotum (ECM 1669 NS)
>> Zelenka: Trio Sonatas (ECM 1671/72 NS)

Keith Jarrett Trio: Tokyo ’96 (ECM 1666)

| Tyran Grillo

Tokyo '96

Keith Jarrett Trio
Tokyo ’96

Keith Jarrett piano
Gary Peacock double-bass
Jack DeJohnette drums
Recorded March 30, 1996 at Orchard Hall, Tokyo
Engineer: Toshio Yamanaka
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Keith Jarrett’s trend-setting standards trio returns to Japan in celebration of its 15th year in this commanding live recording, which from bare pianistic threads spins an up-tempo version of “It Could Happen To You” to kick things off just right. With DeJohnette’s brushes flying and Peacock likewise enamored, free and easy exchanges abound. At this point we’re already hooked, so that “Never Let Me Go” becomes a mantra to guide us through the rest. There’s so much tenderness from Jarrett here, it’s a wonder he can emote with so little vocal breach. This, along with Peacock’s soulful slides, makes for one of the most heartwarming tracks in the trio’s output. Peacock’s early lepidopteran solo in “Summer Night” traces Jarrett’s masterful story arc word for word and shifts into high gear for “John’s Abbey” in a chain of powerful music-making. The trio’s sparkling rendition of “Billie’s Bounce” is a splash of cold water on the face. Jarrett’s right hand slaloms through the left’s gentle punctuations before a concluding solo from DeJohnette puts the icing on this positively exuberant cake. It’s one of a few standout moments from the drummer, who relays hand percussion and hi-hat in “I’ll Remember April” and leads the trio into an organic fadeout. All of which makes the relatively brief “Mona Lisa” a magical moment. Painting with a dark and bar-lit hue, its grandeur is obscured, embraced, inhaled.

Two tracks find Jarrett drawing improvised pieces from the energies at hand. “Last Night When We Were Young” blends into “Caribbean Sky,” while “My Funny Valentine” morphs into “Song.” In each there is a hip nostalgia, Jarrett’s sweeping gestures the perfect foil for every tectonic shift the rhythm section brings topside. Like a mountain shadow looming in the twilight, the latter offers especial solace, standing as a vestige of times we have yet to know. DeJohnette’s quiet rumblings are a distant thunder, even as Peacock’s restless song offers the promise of a new day.

Were it not for the due process this trio brings to every verdict, it might be easy to let these live recordings blend into one another. Yet these are cases without perpetrators, whose crimes are absolved the moment they are committed. Like a virus that adapts to vaccinations, their creativity spreads with an all-consuming will to be felt. Only here, rather than pain and decay, there is affirmation, resurrection, and spirit. We encounter this most vividly in “Autumn Leaves,” which in addition to being one of the trio’s signatures finds delicate balance here through Jarrett’s anticipatory style. Jarrett makes block chords blossom with melody, just as he deepens the single note. In the wake of such marvel, perhaps only this rhythm section can sustain the flame with the skill that Peacock and DeJohnette possess in spades. DeJohnette’s brushes in particular keep up with every roll, while Peacock’s excitations somehow ring contemplatively.

Jarrett and his band mates carry a tune without ever letting us forget that they wouldn’t be here without that tune to begin with. Whether through bold, linear lines or atmospheric touches, the trio puts melody over matter, because in the end melody is all that matters.

<< Bent Sørensen: Birds and Bells (ECM 1665 NS)
>> Schönberg/Schubert: Klavierstücke (ECM 1667 NS)

Misha Alperin w/John Surman: First Impression (ECM 1664)

| Tyran Grillo

First Impression

First Impression

Misha Alperin piano
John Surman soprano and baritone saxophones
Arkady Shilkloper French horn, flugelhorn
Terje Gewelt double-bass
Jon Christensen drums
Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen percussion
Recorded December 1997 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Ukrainian pianist and composer Misha Alperin joins forces for the first time in session with British reedist John Surman (a last-minute replacement for Tore Brunborg) in this melodious, spontaneous set. Augmented by Arkady Shilkloper on French horn and flugelhorn, Terje Gewelt on bass, and Jon Christensen on drums, their hypnotic nexus breathes ounces of thematic life into the “Overture” in watery, stepwise motion. Surman’s reptilian soprano takes us in some unexpected directions throughout a holistic introduction, while his unmistakable baritone threads resilient cables through “Twilight house” and “City Dance.” The first of these is where the session truly comes to life through his interactions with Alperin, while the latter serves a touch of groove in a veritable trill buffet (think Snakeoil). “Movement” features classical percussionist Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen (heard previously on No Birch) in a spindly improv, the pointillism and melancholy draw of which only thinly veil its composed undercurrent. A lovely solo from Shilkloper on French horn rises like a paper lantern lit and offered to the sky.

Yet these are but the roofing to the album’s five “Impressions,” each a pillar in the dust. Most of these are latticed pieces in chambered combinations, achieving darkest patina in “Second Impression,” in which Surman’s soprano dances like a wick-hugging flame, and whispering new beginnings in “Fifth Impression.” Neither is as intimate as the title track, in its way a profound one. In printing terms, the first impression is always the most crisp, the most sought after, but here we get something so ephemeral that it hardly seems to stick to the page. In its solo piano expanse is something metaphysical, a catch of moonlight in the mind.

<< Dave Holland Quintet: Points of View (ECM 1663)
>> Bent Sørensen: Birds and Bells (ECM 1665 NS)

Dave Holland Quintet: Points of View (ECM 1663)

| Tyran Grillo

Alternate Points of View

Dave Holland Quintet
Points of View

Dave Holland double-bass
Steve Wilson soprano and alto saxophones
Robin Eubanks trombone
Steve Nelson vibraphone, marimba
Billy Kilson drums
Recorded September 25/26, 1997 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James Farber
Produced by Manfred Eicher

In 1997, ECM veteran Dave Holland unveiled his new quintet with saxophonist Steve Wilson, trombonist Robin Eubanks, vibist Steve Nelson, and drummer Billy Kilson. Wilson and Kilson were then the latest additions to the bassist’s milieu, the former making his only ECM appearance here and both making their debut with the label. Kilson has since grown to notoriety through his associations with Holland, and it’s impossible to wonder why after hearing him emote throughout this smooth, copacetic set, especially in tracks like “Metamorphos” (the sole Eubanks-penned tune therein) and Holland’s opener, “The Balance.” As representative a doorway as one could hope for, its unmistakable bass line underscores a developing signature of drums, bass, and vibes that sticks to the ribs like a good meal. It’s a deep and shimmering sound, whetting our appetite through a solid solo from Eubanks, Holland all the while bringing that buoyant flavor we crave. Wilson’s sopranism whips a thin caramel in Holland’s dark chocolate goodness, while Kilson’s riffle force adds texture and crunch. The result is the astrological sign under which the remainder lives.

As per usual, Holland takes the lion’s share of compositional duties. “Mr. B.” brings the joyful, swinging sort of beauty one would expect from bassist Ray Brown, to whom it bears dedication. An early vibes solo gets us off on the right foot in this sure jaunt through city streets. Wilson gives an exemplary lesson in alto improvisation, building from simple elements and unwinding in flowing chromatic lines that cajole the band to peak intensity. “Bedouin Trail” is a leftover from Holland’s Thimar session with Anouar Brahem and John Surman and proves to be a perfect atmospheric vehicle. Nelson draws from an especially appropriate color palette, pairing nicely with the sandy textures from Eubanks. “Ario” means à Rio and came out of a trip Holland took to Brazil just before putting this record together. Though inspired by rainforest and natural splendor, it boasts an urban edge, not to mention also the cleanest solos of the entire set. Holland’s then-recent work with Herbie Hancock adds due piquancy to “Herbaceous,” an upbeat cruise along fast-moving waters. Holland is swift as a jackrabbit here, setting off some gorgeous soprano work in the process.

Wilson and Nelson round out the writing with “The Benevolent One” and “Serenade,” respectively. The saxophonist gives us the tender heart of the session and provides plenty of page space for soulful monologues all around. Nelson likewise in “Serenade,” a tropical infusion of marimba that is easy, breezy, beautiful.

Throughout every track, Holland brings the listener courtside, as it were, with his lyrical, elliptical playing. Yet off all the soloists, it is Eubanks who shows the most fire and innovation. In the end, we have laid-back, non-confrontational, music that comes to us democratically and without pretension. A well-rounded record, slick as rain.

<< Philipp Wachsmann/Paul Lytton: Some Other Season (ECM 1662)
>> Misha Alperin w/John Surman: First Impression (ECM 1664)

Chris Potter: The Sirens (ECM 2258)

| Tyran Grillo

The Sirens

Chris Potter
The Sirens

Chris Potter tenor and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet
Craig Taborn piano
David Virelles prepared piano, celeste, harmonium
Larry Grenadier double bass
Eric Harland drums
Recorded September 13-15, 2011 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James A. Farber
Assistant: Charlie Kramsky
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Saxophonist Chris Potter does Homer’s The Odyssey jazzily in his first leader date for ECM. Joined by pianists Craig Taborn and David Virelles, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Eric Harland, he dips into a sea of changes and emerges with a row of gold coins in his mouth. It is one thing to read into his allusions and programmatic suggestions for what follows, quite another to take the music on its own terms in the heat of moment after delectable moment. Not only has he taken a concept and made it his own, but he has further let the concept have a life of its own. He’s unafraid to round the corners, darken the edges, and age the surface, so that each tune is fully weathered before it reaches us, despite its nominally spontaneous creation and oxidization. In such a context, his extroversion speaks a thousand tongues.

Sirens

From the start, “Wine Dark Sea” proves an apt descriptor of Potter’s tannined blowing and sets a tone for this smooth, eminently drinkable leader date (his first for ECM). The cinematic writing (all but the final track were penned by Potter) and rolling pianism get us into the textuality of things with a single reed as interpreter. Potter also opens the door for a far-reaching solo from Taborn, whose recognizable tickling brings a hip, modern edge to an otherwise classic sound. Matching this fine work is Virelles, whose prepared piano adds patina to “Wayfinder.” This ebullient track dashes more than a hint of its flavor from Pat Metheny and contrasts with the opener as a way of expressing Potter’s depth of execution.

On to “Dawn (With Her Rosy Fingers),” perhaps the only Homeric ballad in modern jazz. If we are tempted to read the urban sprawl into its matrix it’s only because Potter is so adept at rendering the ancient as if it were cotemporal with our awareness of it. Grenadier’s solo captures all of this and more, flipping rocks and mushroom caps like children in search of miniscule dreams. The progressive solo from Potter is a music lover’s dream come true: fresh, welcoming, sincere. He expands his versatility in the title track, for which he cracks open a vintage bottle of bass clarinet and lets its notes air. The attention to detail is sublime, even if the music is more than that. One might expect the call of the eponymous sirens to be ethereal, floating, and divine. Yet while the bass clarinet certainly possesses these qualities in its forested way, it is perhaps not the first instrument we might choose to evoke such iconic allure. What we experience, then, is not the call per se but the wrenching thrill of that call at the cellular level, of the biological fists that clench in response to it. We feel this especially in the arco bass solo, which threads its own curse, as if on the verge of blackout. And even when the calls themselves are realized by way of tenor, the steadiness of Potter’s breath enacts a decidedly secular enchantment. That same tenor flows through the veins of the penultimate “Stranger At The Gate” (a more complexly singing track that fits Taborn’s pointillism into a lovely trio progression) and gives the disjointed “Kalypso” an epic cast. The latter’s boppish ending throws us like a stone into moonlit water.

Potter dons the sopranist’s hat in “Penelope” and “Nausikaa,” both of which give us aerial views of the album’s topography and narrative arc. Potter’s squint-worthy changes and chromatic playing flower intently, towering but never domineering. Virelles evokes the princess’s footsteps via celeste, running with piano down the slopes—only in this valley of the wind there is only music. He and Taborn settle the tab with “The Shades,” a shimmering sunset of celeste and piano only.

The Sirens showcases Potter’s most mature writing yet. His tone is robust yet crisp, weighted yet dancing. He bears his improvisatory toolkit most admirably, going from legato chains to piercing wails at the flip of a tunic. His panache is never hackneyed. This the seasoned Potter fan will already know. What separates his saxophonism on this album apart is its commitment to story arc. How appropriate he should pick a tale that survived for so long through oral preservation alone. In meshing these two “texts”—the spoken and the written, the improvised and the composed—he continues that tradition, cutting into it a rift of personal experience into which we are welcome to pour our own. And indeed, Potter structures these pieces as any good storyteller would: with introductions that hook us in and with characters that come and go as they would in real life. This is the magic of The Sirens: in mining a classic of world literature, Poptter frees its personages and places from the bondage we might expect of them. Led by motives as gnarled as the oldest roots, they wander, never lost as long as they are heard.

Writing as I am in Ithaca (New York, that is), I cannot help but feel self-indulgent in loving this scintillatingly recorded disc. Its spacious, verdant music-making has as many tales to tell as there are people to hear them. Wherever ECM might take you, be sure to spend the night here at least once in your odyssey. Destined to be a classic.

(To hear samples of The Sirens, click here.)

Roscoe Mitchell: Nine To Get Ready (ECM 1651)

| Tyran Grillo

Nine To Get Ready

Roscoe Mitchell
Nine To Get Ready

Roscoe Mitchell saxophones, flute, vocal
Hugh Ragin trumpet
George Lewis trombone
Matthew Shipp piano
Craig Taborn pianos
Jaribu Shahid basses, vocal
William Parker double-bass
Tanni Tabbal drums, percussion, vocal
Gerald Cleaver drums
Recorded May 1997 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James Farber
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Nine To Get Ready realizes a leap of intuition for saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and his Note Factory ensemble. The influential Art Ensemble of Chicago veteran observes structure in even the freest settings and activates that structure with convulsive possibility. Taking his previous collaborations with Evan Parker as litmus, we find in Mitchell’s approach to composition a like-spirited feeling of bridled spontaneity. Yet if those two unforgettable sessions represented the breaking of new ground, this one enacts a finer sifting of its upturn.

The mysterious “Leola” opens in goopy meditation and perhaps shifts expectations to another plane entirely. From a slow draw it liquefies the pips on playing cards and scrambles them until a royal flush of reflective art takes form. From this Mitchell deals as potent a hand as one could imagine, introducing us to the post-AEC developments he has so meticulously sustained. Here is a scene where sunlight peaks out from overcast Byzantine sky with all the weight of a dictionary compressed into a single utterance. Like the mouth rounded in preparation, its textures work in a symphony of muscle and air. As the atmosphere builds up the depth of its green, trills add fresh movement to an implied and fragrant biosphere. Here is the power of imagination, kneaded until the grammar of brass is personified even as it is depoliticized.

If the Parker comparison feels arbitrary, then through “Dream And Response” it finds purchase in Mitchell’s remarkable sopranism, which lends mysticism also to the silver chain of “Hop Hip Bip Bir Rip.” At once sibilant and razor-edged, it carves as it sings. The beauty of the former piece—and by extension of Mitchell’s sound-world on the whole—is that dream and response are one and the same. Like a nighttime vision it implies a vast and impenetrable backdrop, a sphere of myriad voices. The late Lester Bowie gets prime dedication in “For Lester B.” This gorgeous, slow swing through galactic travels is all the more poignant for trumpeter Hugh Ragin’s soulful approach. Couched in a loving cluster, he casts a bronze of stark quality. A shaded bass solo reaches a hand heavenward and pulls down a projection screen, across which flits a gallery of memories.

To offset the bitter sweetness of it all, Mitchell reveals a clear and golden tone in “Jamaican Farewell.” In the presence of his buttery textures and delectable intonation, the entrance of piano resounds with oceanic current and stuffs plenty of beauty into the naysayer’s pipe. The title track is another soprano feat, circular and intense. Here is also where the doubled backing trio reveals its many-chambered heart. Drummers Tanni Tabbal and Gerald Cleaver, bassists Jaribu Shahid, and pianists Matthew Shipp and Craig Taborn match the speed and tone of every phoneme in a Jacob’s Ladder of overzealous diphthongs. They are both the underlying soil and the fresh pavement atop it. Highlights abound further in “Bessie Harris.” This more straightforward morsel whirls until it spends itself in pure goodness. Phenomenal playing from Mitchell moves the spirit in Ragin’s thin-lipped solo, and bids both drummers to speak. After the insightful experiment in reanimation that is “Fallen Heroes” (featuring Mitchell on flute), the ensemble ends with two shorter tracks, “Move Toward The Light” and “Big Red Peaches,” the latter spinning a Tom Waits-like coda.

We can speak of this music all we like, but by the end it has spoken of us.

<< Selected Signs, I: An ECM Anthology (ECM 1650)
>> Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge – Keller Quartett (ECM 1652 NS)