Jazz

Enrico Rava: On the Dance Floor (ECM 2293)

| Tyran Grillo

On the Dance Floor

Enrico Rava
Parco della Musica Jazz Lab
On the Dance Floor

Enrico Rava trumpet
Andrea Tofanelli trumpet, flugelhorn
Claudio Corvini trumpet, flugelhorn
Mauro Ottolini trombone, tuba
Daniele Tittarelli alto saxophone, flute
Dan Kinzelman tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet
Franz Bazzani keyboard
Giovanni Guidi piano, Fender Rhodes, toy piano
Dario Deidda bass
Marcello Giannini electric guitar
Zeno de Rossi drums
Ernesto Lopez Maturell percussion
Recorded live 20 May and 30 November 2011 at Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome by Massimiliano Cervini and Roberto Lioli, respectively
Mixed by Stefano Amerio, Enrico Rava, Mauro Ottolini, and Manfred Eicher
Produced by Manfred Eicher

The story of On the Dance Floor is destined to be a highlight of ECM apocrypha. Following the extensive media coverage of Michael Jackson’s death in 2009, Enrico Rava immersed himself in the King of Pop’s unparalleled songbook. “It became clear to me that for years I had ignored one of the great protagonists of 20th-century music and dance,” says the Italian jazz trumpeter. “A total artist, a perfectionist, a genius.” Going against the grain of mainstream opinion, he discovered an affinity for the relatively recent albums, notably HIStory (1995) and Invincible (2001). All of which makes this set of whimsical arrangements by Mauro Ottolini that much more heartfelt for being rough around the edges and, at times, obscurely chosen. Gone are the autotuned drones of studio-only memorials. In their place is an incendiary performance, recorded live at Rome’s Auditorium Parco della Musica, from which Rava’s backing band gets its name. And in this respect we have something more than a tribute. Indeed, it is a cannonball dive into the popular pool.

Rava“I felt the necessity to delve deeper into Jackson’s music
by adding something of myself to it.”

There is a telling sequence in Spike Lee’s 2012 documentary, Bad 25, during which one interviewee after another is moved to wordless tears when asked about MJ’s sudden passing. It is this poignancy, this inability to express an overwhelming sadness, that keys us into the importance of one man’s contributions to musical art. In light of this, what better way to begin the Rava program than with “Speechless”? The almost funereal piano intro would seem to indicate as much and gives us some moments to reflect on the legacy we are about to encounter, albeit in big band form. Somber horns weave a floating pyre, from which Rava sounds his dedication, accompanied only by harp before Dario Deidda’s bass draws a pliant line of tenderness. Gorgeous, breathy alto work from Daniele Tittarelli forms the lifeblood of a song that in its original form begins and ends with MJ alone:

Your love is magical, that’s how I feel
But I have not the words here to explain
Gone is the grace for expressions of passion
But there are worlds and worlds of ways to explain

Ottolini’s present version dutifully preserves these bookends, only now as a web of brass. This is followed by a sparkling rendition of “They Don’t Care About Us” (also off HIStory), which begins like an Art Ensemble of Chicago excursion before sliding into the Double Dutch chants that so distinctly mark the original. It brings a range of sounds to fruition, from an airy, orchestral sensibility via synth strings (which allude briefly to “Who Is It” from 1991’s Dangerous, otherwise unrepresented) to Dan Kinzelman’s spate of enraptured tenor discourse, and all of it threaded by Rava’s triumphant charge in a steep of delightful Reggae flavor.

From an icily evocative opening, “Privacy” (Invincible) launches into a potent chord progression that recalls Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” and flows with a swanky grittiness around a thread of electric guitar. The latter provides pulse and vocality to “Blood On The Dance Floor,” from the eponymous 1997 remix album. Yet here is where the project begins to reveal its true character in the lightness of approach, which at moments detracts from the feelings with which seasoned fans will be readily familiar. The rather straight-laced syncopations also eject a few nuances from the original song. Another curious thing happens with “Little Susie,” which, to one who doesn’t know the original, might seem a slow but nevertheless swinging tune, all the while missing out on both its lyrical power and controversial artist Gottfried Helnwein’s accompanying image in the HIStory CD booklet:

Little Susie

Somebody killed little Susie
The girl with the tune
Who sings in the daytime at noon
She was there screaming
Beating her voice in her doom
But nobody came to her soon…

Hints of this tragedy remain in the music box intro before giving way to Rava’s caramel tone, which unleashes washes of sepia and bleeding watercolor. Despite the gothic waltz-like qualities and sensitive subject matter, it breathes here with a far more positive life. Its pairing with “Blood On The Dance Floor” is a clever one, for both feature a Susie as protagonist. In one, she is victim; in the other, she is predator. The obligatory nod to “Thriller” suffers from a similar lack of context, while also acting as a prime vehicle for Rava’s superbly considered acrobatics. The fluidity of his virtuosity—at age 72, no less—is a wonder to behold, as is the trombone solo from the arranger himself. And one can’t help but revel in the free-for-all that erupts before the fanfare.

A surprising turn comes in Deidda’s solo bass rendition of “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.” This intimate yet playfully inflected look at a classic tune from 1987’s Bad is remarkable, if abbreviated (it elides the middle 8), and paves the on-ramp to a rollicking “Smooth Criminal.” As the song that finally won Rava over to the MJ ethos, it delivers vitality in the soloing, yet one is hard-pressed to explain the blatant note change in the chorus. “History” provides a fitting summation, leaving us with a pleasant aftertaste as we go our separate ways to the tune of Rava’s impassioned extroversion.

Nestled among all of these is his favorite: the Charlie Chaplin-esque “Smile,” which finds the trumpeter at peak soul. One can almost feel the grain of black and white, its old-time charm lifting from the screen in a nostalgic dance. This tune works best of all, if only because it and its source pay homage to something that is beyond them both.

Although I grew up with Thriller in my veins, I concede to Rava insofar as MJ’s later work is far better than it is often made out to be. That being said, it is difficult to oust Bad from the throne it occupies in my listening heart. For lifelong fans like myself, Rava’s redux requires a few spins in order to take the album on its own terms, if only because the originals are so ingrained into our very DNA through years, and countless more to come, of experiential listening. Here one must encounter them anew.

It’s easy for us to talk about artists who lived long ago as if they were somehow among us. And yet, how do we evoke an artist whose absence is still fresh, whose life and work continues to intersect with so many millions of others? With all the MJ tribute albums already out there and those sure to come, drawing compilations of his preexisting or unfinished work, this one takes a newfound love for what drove him and turns it into something passionate and fun.

In the end, On the Dance Floor lacks the voice. By this I mean not only MJ’s phenomenal pipes, but also the words behind them. What distinguishes his later work is its mounting critique against an unforgiving media that searched for every possible opportunity to lambaste one of the most important artists of our time, as well as a more daring interest and insight into the darker corners of the human psyche (“Little Susie” being a prime example). By the same token, in spite of the many tributes which, ethically or not, have capitalized on his passing, here we have something joyous, uplifting, affirmative.

One can therefore see these as translations of a vibrant canon. Like translations, they are enjoyable enough on their own terms, yet how fortunate that the originals are accessible beyond all language barriers, for MJ will forever be a language unto himself.

(To hear samples of On the Dance Floor, click here.)

MJ
R.I.P. (1958-2009)

Elton Dean Quintet: Boundaries (JAPO 60033)

| Tyran Grillo

Boundaries

Elton Dean Quintet
Boundaries

Elton Dean saxello, alto saxophone
Mark Charig cornet
Keith Tippett piano, marimba, voice, bottle
Louis Moholo drums
Marcio Mattos bass
Recorded February 1980 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer Martin Wieland
Produced by Steve Lake and Elton Dean

Late saxophonist Elton Dean (1945-2006) was notable not only for his finely separated fingering and smooth alto playing, but also for giving due attention to the saxello, a soprano variant which has in recent years seen a comeback in production. Sounding like a cross between its cousin and an English horn, its tonal possibilities give this JAPO session a freshness that has a ways to go yet before its expiration date. From 1966-67, Dean played sideman to singer Long John Baldry in the British R&B outfit Bluesology. Incidentally, the band’s piano man, Reginald Dwight, would borrow from Dean’s and Baldry’s names to create a new stage persona as none other than Elton John. As for Dean, he would go on to make a name (keeping his intact) for himself as saxophonist for the Keith Tippett Sextet, Soft Machine (for which he is perhaps best known), and a string of his own groups. The quintet featured here was among the freer of the latter incarnations, and included Tippett on piano and marimba, cornetist (and fellow Soft Machinist) Mark Charig, bassist Marcio Mattos, and South African drummer Louis Moholo.

EDQ
(Elton Dean Quintet, Rome 1980)

Dean takes on all composing duties, save for the group improv “Out Of Bounds.” This one is their creed. Between Tippett’s mysterious vocals and his marimba’s sprightly appearance (its only of the set) to the fantastic puckering from both horns and Mattos’s flint sparks, there’s much to savor. Yet it’s the title track that welcomes the album’s weightiest theme. Saxello and cornet make a piercing duo in this wide rubato river, as they do in the concluding “Fast News,” which, though primarily a cascading pianistic excursion, goads the listener upstream. Said aquatic qualities crystallize, appropriately enough, in the impressionistic “Oasis.” Each cymbal tap is a glint of sun across the selfsame surface. Mattos stumbles to the edge and lowers lips to drink, only to be met by the saxello’s mocking reality. These sere awakenings come to head during the final showdown between survival and stasis, sinking in quicksand with choices intact. The hope we seek comes to us through a glass darkly in “Basho,” which, if not named for the famous Japanese itinerant, at the very least instills a poetry all its own. Again Dean is the leading voice, turning all sorts of somersaults to earn his keep, while Charig gets some face time in the latter half: frayed and shining gold.

The playing on the whole is robust and centered, though Tippett’s sparkling pianism stands out—all the more so for the crisply engineered recording. You certainly won’t find much in the way of swing, however. Each cut sounds like an introduction to a piece that never materializes. This doesn’t mean the music is ill formed. Rather, it emphasizes the openness of its emotional tact. My one complaint is that Charig isn’t given more airtime. He’s clearly an emotionally charged player, but it’s Dean who dominates the scene. Thankfully, both are so arresting that it ultimately matters little. Quality reigns.

Craig Taborn: Avenging Angel (ECM 2207)

| Tyran Grillo

Avenging Angel

Craig Taborn
Avenging Angel

Craig Taborn piano
Recorded July 2010, Auditorio Radiotelevisione Svizzera, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Avenging Angel marks Craig Taborn’s solo debut, this after a string of fine appearances on joints with Roscoe Mitchell, Evan Parker, Michael Formanek, and David Torn. Being an ardent Bill Laswell fan, however, my first encounter with the Minneapolis-born keyboardist came by way of his smooth electric piano stylings on Dub Chamber 3 (released 2000 on ROIR). Incidentally, that classic underground session also featured future ECM label mate Nils Petter Molvær on trumpet—perhaps a sign of things to come. The present album finds Taborn concentrating, as he has been in recent years, on the art of unaccompanied improvisation. The formula will sound familiar to anyone who has picked up a Keith Jarrett record in the last three decades, but the results, while likeminded, are starkly Taborn’s own. For whereas it is easy to read transcendence into Jarrett’s epic exegeses, Taborn wants us to dive into his instrument and nest in it for awhile. In his words, “This music is not about ‘transcending the piano’ as much as it is about working with what is possible within it.” Thus taking the dynamics of physical means, environment, and atmospheric context into account, he crafts a sound that appears structured yet which allows centuries of air to flow through its architecture.

Taborn
(Photo source: flickriver)

Like a tap on the shoulder from a shaded past, “The Broad Day King” introduces us to a watercolor-bleed of feeling. The effect is skeletal and tented by fingers of dawn. We can guess said king’s name. The music might even tell us. But ultimately his identity can be written only by hammers and strings, his reign as fragile as their tuning. If such titles mean anything to us, it is only because the Escherian landscape in which they are situated is so faithfully rendered. In the spontaneity of creation, Taborn locks us into the spirit not only of the elusive moment, but also of the many directions its ancestors have traveled to get here. We hear this in the sparkling eddies of “Glossolalia” and “Neverland,” and in child-like wonder of “Diamond Turning Dream,” which spins a bracelet of the former’s starlight.

This album is yet another benchmark for engineer Stefano Amerio, who posits Taborn’s intimate storytelling in a reverberant universe. The touch is just enough to spin an expansive backdrop while keeping the foreground crystal clear. This is truest in the title track, which dances uncannily at the edge of our firelight, and in “This Voice Says So.” The latter plays like a lullaby stretched into the slumbering pathos it inspires, making for one of the most beautiful tracks in ECM history. It is the illusion of stillness magnified, a glassine reflection, and all the deeper for its minimalism. And though Taborn does stir up the sediment, he is careful to end on the same delicacy with which the piece begins, ever attentive to the space(s) he inhabits. “True Life Near” is an example of the pianist’s uncanny ability to elicit tenderness from the often-sharp attack of his right hand. If any Jarrett parallels must be drawn, let them find purchase on this morsel of cinematic wonder. “Gift Horse / Over The Water” is a jauntier diptych with tight, 90-degree syncopations, and detailed riffs over a head-nodding ostinato. Its mechanical aspirations are more fully realized in “A Difficult Thing Said Simply,” while the bubbling “Spirit Hard Knock” exploits even more the capabilities of the studio’s Steinway D in epic waves. “Neither-Nor” is, as its title would seem to imply, the most “grammatical” of the set and has the quality of rainfall. Another highlight is “Forgetful,” a lost jazz standard trickling in from the other side of a dream, and which takes on some of the grandeur of that dream in its mellifluous resolution. “This Is How You Disappear” is a clever way to both say and realize fadeout. Drawing the curtain one fold at a time, until all that remains is the cover photograph’s sliver of backstage light, Taborn sets off a tender fuse with his finger roll, even as stars crash earthward, leaving only splashes of faraway nebulae to show for their sacrifice.

No matter how out of focus these images become, you can always count on Taborn to leave at least one focal point crisp. The focal point is paramount, for it invites us not only to listen but also to become. It is our hovel of transformation. As to what the listener might turn into, that’s as unpredictable as the paths his fingers take. If this angel avenges anything, it is the bane of expectation.

(To hear samples of Avenging Angel, click here.)

Charles Lloyd/Maria Farantouri: Athens Concert (ECM 2205/06)

| Tyran Grillo

Athens Concert

Charles Lloyd
Maria Farantouri
Athens Concert

Charles Lloyd tenor saxophone, flute, tárogató
Maria Farantouri voice
Jason Moran piano
Reuben Rogers double-bass
Eric Harland drums
Socratis Sinopoulos lyra
Takis Farazis piano
Recorded in concert June 2010 at Herod Atticus Odeon, Athens
Recording engineer: Nikos Espialidis
Assistant engineer: Kostas Kyriakidis
Equipment by Logothetis Music
Mixed by Manfred Eicher and Jan Erik Kongshaug at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Produced by Manfred Eicher and Dorothy Darr

Where are we
that the wind won’t blow?

“The human voice can capture the heart more swiftly and directly than any other instrument,” writes Charles Lloyd in the liner notes for Athens Concert, an historic live event given the permanence it more than deserves through this landmark recording. Lloyd goes on to relate how, as a child growing up in Memphis, he would fall asleep to the sound of Billy Holiday’s voice from the radio under his pillow, and how years later that same magic revealed itself in contralto Maria Farantouri (Greece’s Edith Piaf, if you will), who he later befriended and who introduced him to the songs of Mikis Theodorakis after he’d invited her to sing one of his own. Farantouri’s heart is ancient, and her desire to introduce Lloyd to her culture is manifest in the depth of his playing. She characterizes the tenor master as “a shaman of jazz who dominates the stage with the power of the mystic and the innocence of a child. The sound of his music can have the weight of a stone or the lightness of the air. With his improvisations he weaves an imaginary but so familiar world, a mirage constantly disintegrating and reforming.” We might say, then, that Lloyd is a singer, channeling his breath through a weathered metallic throat and bidding the very stars to dance. The bridging of these two worlds spawns a third, one where voices of time sing like parents to a child.

And what is “Kratissa ti zoi mou” (I Kept Hold of My Life), which opens the program, if not a voice churning in the tide of darkness from which we all are born? George Seferis’s words (from the poem, “Epiphany, 1937”) blossom from an unmistakable tenor branch, smooth yet weighted as if by the buckshot of self-awareness and sliding like honey down an enviable backdrop: Jason Moran on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass, and Eric Harland on drums. Curtains part to reveal Farantouri’s husky swirls. Moran elicits sweet noise, mixing Ketil Bjørnstad-like textures with idiosyncratic spectral twists. An emblematic introduction into this forested sound-world, it is the concert’s Rosetta Stone. Lloyd’s classic “Dream Weaver” continues in the same flowing vein, his remarkably sunlit reed gathering enough thread to make even the most sedentary marionette nod in a groovy and somehow freer turn. Harland is also notable here, buoying a rich solo from Moran, who maintains epic contrast between the left and right hands throughout. Lloyd brings a classic edge to the denouement, further picked up by Rogers with intimacy. Our bandleader continues to regale us with his storytelling in “Blow Wind.” The original song finds Farantouri channeling Sheila Jordan, the lyrical star to an instrumental sky. Her voice indeed blows off into the distance, leaving Lloyd to shape those tendrils of dust left in her wake before she returns to stir them anew. Lloyd also pens “Prayer,” which features still more wonders from Moran. Farantouri’s full-throated, wordless song emerges from the bass, reedy like the muse that calls to her. A click away finds Lloyd setting words by politicist Agathi Dimitrouka in “Requiem.” A surprisingly buttery song that finds groove in the tragic, in it Farantouri’s tenderness clears the way for Moran’s more diffuse considerations, as microscopic as pollen and just as fragrant. The music of ECM mainstay Eleni Karaindrou also makes an appearance with “Taxidi sta Kythera” (Voyage to Cythera), which against a low and sultry swing allows gorgeous exchanges between the two bill headers, their voices filling the same crucible with variations of the same alloy.

LM 1

Pianist Takis Farazis joins for the performance’s remainder: the three-part Greek Suite, which he also arranged. Part I is the most ancient, shifting the sands with “Hymnos stin Ayia Triada,” an early Byzantine hymn to the Holy Trinity. Interweaving Lloyd’s flute and Farantouri’s flutedness, its song is its vow. “Epano sto xero homa” (In the Dry Soil) and “Messa Stous paradissious kipous” (In the Pradise Gardens) come from The Sun and Time by Theodorakis and as such unearth the greatest strengths of Farantouri’s gifts. Yet it is only when the strains of the lyra, played by Karaindrou regular Socratis Sinopoulos, touch the sky in Part II that the clouds weep rain. Amid its assortment of traditional tunes, “Thalassaki Mou” (My Little Sea) stands out to me. Although quite different from the version I grew up on the timeless Songs of the Earth by The Pennywhistlers, it nevertheless brings its own enchantment and stirs the musicians to invigorating levels. Part III boasts tunes from the Epirus region. Among the more moving are “Epirotiko Meroloi,” a lament of war and death told from a mother’s point of view, so well evoked by Lloyd’s uncanny intro and by the jangling folkways that ensue, and the intuitive digressions of lovesick souls in “Mori kontoula lemonia” (Little Lemon Tree). Harland grabs his fair share of the spotlight in “Alismono kae haeromae” (I Forget and I Am Glad), as does Sinopoulos in “Tou hel’ to kastron” (The Castle of the Sun), a traditional song from the Black Sea that is the band at its most attuned.

The encore also comes from a mother’s lips, as love pours through “Yanni Mou” (My Yanni) with more permanence than the bravery it mourns. The stichomythia between Farantouri and Lloyd discloses an oceanic world where the rhythms of fins and tails are the only music that remains. And if its mournful cast seems a somber note on which to end, it is only because the invigorations leading up to it linger like a childhood that refuses to let go. Such is the power of this music: it is memory incarnate.

(To hear samples of Athens Concert, click here or watch the video below.)

Judith Berkson: Oylam (ECM 2121)

| Tyran Grillo

Oylam

Judith Berkson
Oylam

Judith Berkson voice, piano, Wurlitzer and Rhodes pianos, Hammond organ
Recorded April 2009 at Artesuono Studio, Udine
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Steve Lake

Oylam marks the ECM debut of singer/composer/keyboardist Judith Berkson. Although the title denotes “world, universe, creation, reality, realm,” the music seems to append the word “inner” to each of these notions. As a cantor and teacher of liturgical music at New York’s Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation, Berkson is rooted in tradition, but also in the atonal composers that moved her in her teens. She also studied theory and composition with Joe Maneri, thus teasing out a label connection through this recording. Her solo work is a more recent development, the fruit of her time spent in various group contexts. Since 2003, she has focused her energies on her own accompaniment: “I’ve been trying to redefine, for myself, what that might mean, exploring new ways in which voice and piano can be combined and performed by one person, working on all the different possibilities of rhythm, melody, harmony, texture and so on.” Berkson employs a modest range of keyboards and effects, lending a distinctly personal cast to this set of mostly originals, with a stroll down Standards Lane for good measure.

Berkson
(Photo by Luca d´Agostino)

The solo piano “Goodbye Friend No.1” sets the tone for a program that is equal parts resignation and resentment, an honest and brooding look at the air of separations that binds us. Such are the ironies we ecnounter. In the insistence of Berkson’s right hand—especially in songs like “Brute” and “Mi Re Do,” where flashes of dissonance and curlicues of loss reside in every unanswered question—turns the tarnished crystal of experience through which not all light may pass. That same right hand also flits in and out of sync with the lead of “Inside Good Times.” Uncanny in its imagery of children, offerings, and vapor, this song is smoothly contradictory, the first in a peppering of aural sticky notes (see “Little Arrows,” “Fallen Innocent Wandering Thieves,” and “Burnt”) filled with poetic shorthand.

The piano more often takes on a vocal role, while the words, expressed through the inadequacies of lips and tongue, are the beggar’s accompaniment. The supposed angst of urban living lays the bedrock of a bond that almost screams: Labels of praise are their own opposites. Between the wordless flexion of “Clives” and the rounded phrasings of “All Of You,” Berkson echoes, not quite morosely, the feeling of that praise on keys. This Cole Porter classic, along with the jazzier “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” of George a& Ira Gershwin, drops like a stone in the liquid of its surroundings. The cantorial “Ahavas Oylam” and “Hulyet, Hulyet” (a Yiddisdh folk song from the Polish-born poet Mordekhai Gebirtig) betray the capacity of Berkson’s chest voice. Whether floating on a warm wave of organ or nestled a cappella, it needs no mirrors to know its expressions. Berkson’s English lyrics to “Der Leiermann” from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise provide a fairytale turned sour by the heat of retelling, superseded only by the touch of “Goodbye Friend No.2,” which brings the album full oval, not to where it started but to where it will speak.

This is certainly an eclectic program, so those on the fence about buying it would so well to sample it first. Oylam fits snugly beside Sidsel Endresen’s So I Write, ever its idiosyncratic sibling. Yet in spite of the lines one might draw from Berkson to such iconoclasts as Lydia Lunch, Diamanda Galas, Maggie Nicols, and even Shelley Hirsch, this is not a game of shadows. It is, rather, a diary that recognizes our mortal limitations.

A perfect one for a rainy day, for it illuminates the rain that drips in all of us.

(To hear samples of Oylam, click here.)

Roscoe Mitchell/The Note Factory: Far Side (ECM 2087)

| Tyran Grillo

Far Side

Roscoe Mitchell
The Note Factory
Far Side

Roscoe Mitchell saxophones, flutes
Corey Wilkes trumpet, flugelhorn
Craig Taborn piano
Vijay Iyer piano
Harrison Bankhead cello, double-bass
Jaribu Shahid double-bass
Tanni Tabbal drums
Vincent Davis drums
Recorded March 17, 2007 at Stadtsaal, Burghausen
Engineer: Gerhard Gruber (BR)
Radio producer: Roland Spiegel (BR)
Mixed at Artesuono Studio, Udine by Steve Lake and Stefano Amerio
Album produced by Steve Lake

Recorded live at the 2007 Burghausen Jazz Festival in Germany, Far Side documents Roscoe Mitchell’s expanding world of realizations. Working within his characteristically broad strokes is the Note Factory ensemble, something of a dream group for the saxophonist-composer and which includes the contributions of trumpeter Corey Wilkes, pianists Craig Taborn and Vijay Iyer, bassists Harrison Bankhead and Jaribu Shahid, and drummers Tanni Tabbal and Vincent Davis. The result of this coming together is a breaking apart: of expectation, of rigidity, of power. Bringing this approach to the saxophone renders Mitchell’s instrument at once ruler and ruled. We hear this especially in the three-dimensional title piece, for what begins as a lisp on the tongue of convention is methodically developed into full-blown, articulate language. Iyer’s keys rise in a droning arc, like a flipped page or vaulted pole in pathos, a breath at peace with its regularity. A muted Wilkes touches his blade to its mirror image and makes music of its shattered reflection. A kiss of cymbal and ivory unlocks the fringe nature of what swings within and activates a light source hitherto unseen. These torches shuffle themselves into the pack of cards at its center. As hands fan them, the pips dance, and Mitchell waits for the perfect moment of catharsis to wave the magic wand of his soprano and reveal our freely chosen selection. His effectual, sinewy line is a (literally) breathtaking display not only of technical dexterity but also of emotional integrity, matched sentiment for sentiment by a gurgling ascent from flugelhorn. Though translucent, the textures are dense and biologically attuned.

The two atonal pieces that follow take their inspiration from contemporary classical forms. In them one feels the thread reinforced by others less audible. Where the rubato, tenor-led contortions of Quintet 2007 A For Eight ply open spaces in which each instrument is deployed as its own cluster concept, the Trio Four For Eight leans toward the playful yet maintains graciousness. To this fire Wilkes adds fuel, trailing flute and drums that would be otherwise alone in the cognizance of their becoming. They would be heard as they are played, felt through the intermediary mallet and falling into the slumber of a brief coda in tutti.

Ex Flover Five is the most focused piece, for it allows the breadth of spontaneity to rear its magic within the predetermined frame. Taborn is especially terrific here, while Mitchell regales us with such intensity, it’s as if he’s placed a hand on a cold window and furiously scribbled in an attempt to remember its shape before it fades.

Mitchell

Those hoping for the kinetic synergies of Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3 may initially feel disappointed in the Quintet and Trio, but upon closer inspection they allow naked insight into what lies at the core of Mitchell’s art. Either way, the composed sections will be, I think, refreshingly obvious to most listeners. And while the middle section may not be as “exciting” as the outers, it lends the album a concerto-like structure, with a contemplative center. Mitchell’s sound is not that of a proximate whisper but of a distant cry, one that reaches us before it withers. This is music for its own sake, present and accounted for. The congruousness of incongruity is alive and well.

(To hear samples of Far Side, click here.)

*For those following along: Iyer, Shahid, and Tabbal are leftmost in the stereo mix, while Taborn, Bankhead, and Davis are rightmost.

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble: The Moment’s Energy (ECM 2066)

| Tyran Grillo

The Moment's Energy

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble
The Moment´s Energy

Evan Parker soprano saxophone
Peter Evans trumpet, piccolo trumpet
Kō Ishikawa shō
Ned Rothenberg clarinet, bass clarinet, shakuhachi
Philipp Wachsmann violin, live electronics
Agustí Fernandez piano, prepared piano
Barry Guy double-bass
Paul Lytton percussion, live electronics
Lawrence Casserley signal processing instrument
Joel Ryan sample and signal processing
Walter Prati computer processing
Richard Barrett live electronics
Paul Obermayer live electronics
Marco Vecchi sound projection
Recorded November 2007, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield
Engineer: Steve Lowe
Produced by Steve Lake

With the conviction of a fractal, this fifth ECM outing from Evan Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble unwinds in distorted, vastly interconnected replications. True to form, the ensemble welcomes three new members: trumpeter Peter Evans, reedman Ned Rothenberg (who also plays shakuhachi), and Kō Ishikawa playing the shō (Japanese mouth organ). As the growing roster (here numbering 14 members) simultaneously hones and fragments the ensemble’s dynamics, it likewise reshuffles Parker’s role as composer and bandleader in this commissioned piece for the 2007 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. As with The Eleventh Hour, a wealth of intensities emerged in the rehearsal sessions leading up to the event in question, only now most of the selections are taken from behind those very scenes (only Part IV and the epilogue are live). A meticulously composed fuselage serves to enhance the spontaneity of its appendages.

Part 1 introduces us to the masterful cross-referencing of signatures that distinguishes this album from its predecessors as a work of superlative control. Waterspouts of piano (Agustí Fernández), soprano saxophone (Parker), and violin (Phillipp Wachsmann) leap and drown in a roiling ocean of sonic information, from which Part 2 draws out cartographic ingredients in the effervescent soup of Rothenberg’s bass clarinet. Part 3 pales into lachrymose shades, rubbed smooth by the sandpaper of a deep-throated awareness. Its echoes are more pre than post. Part 4 strikes the expressiveness of Ishikawa’s shō like a match to wick. If ever there was darkness in these halls, it is now dispelled by holy presence. This transmogrifies into a jangling exposition in Part 5 and on to the bowed details of Part 6. In a space where siren and unfinished business can stew and percolate, its string-heavy idols pirouette at the border of gut and reason before Part 7 evinces fantastic droning depth. The album’s most nourishing morsel comes last in the form of “Incandescent Clouds,” an electronic summation of all that has preceded, spliced and held together until it fuses anew.

As the most electro-centric of the EAE recordings, The Moment’s Energy embodies an exact and accomplished science. Yet no matter how technologically slanted the music becomes, it always retains an earthen quality. Interventions reveal the circuitry of life at large. Every element carries equal atomic weight. Thus it becomes the thing it never professes to be: naked sound. Like the repeated word, it sheds its associations, becomes its own entity.

This is energy’s moment.

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble: The Eleventh Hour (ECM 1924)

| Tyran Grillo

The Eleventh Hour

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble
The Eleventh Hour

Evan Parker soprano saxophone, voice
Philipp Wachsmann violin, live electronics
Paul Lytton percussion, live electronics
Agustí Fernández piano, prepared piano
Adam Linson double-bass
Lawrence Casserley signal processing instrument, persussion, voice
Joel Ryan sample and signal processing
Walter Prati computer processing
Richard Barrett sampling keyboard, live electronics
Paul Obermayer sampling keyboard, live electronics
Marco Vecchi sound projection
Recorded November 2004, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
Mixed February 2005 at Gateway Studio, Kingston-upon-Thames
Engineer: Steve Lowe
Produced by Steve Lake

The birds have survived winter’s bane. Wind pulls their feathers northward. The cranes arch their necks. Let the awakening begin, they seem to say. Chickadees distort in and out of frame, radio stations at the whim of a quavering dial. The crows prune their ebony in the guise of indignation. The starlings weep electricity. Echoes of samples wound forward lift their minds while lowering their eyes. Hammers and strings convulse in riddles of expression. Ghosts become living. The analog becomes digital. There is always something of one in the other.

So begins The Eleventh Hour, the fourth album by saxophonist Evan Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble for ECM. Adding to his already growing menagerie are the voices of Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer, both remarkable composers and electronic alchemists. Their extensive databank brings a gravid feeling that such manipulations often lack. In the same vein are knob-turners Lawrence Casserley, Joel Ryan, and Walter Prati, all of whom bring so much to “Shadow Play,” the opening track described above in which their real-time modifications expand upon Parker’s multilayered soprano solo. The latter’s relative absence thereafter speaks to his appreciation for space and his ability to mark its passage without uttering a note. And while we do hear ghosts of Barry Guy in the mix, it is American bassist Adam Linson who takes the stage in his place.

This vibrant record documents the 11-piece ensemble in performances commissioned by Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts, under whose auspices it developed the five-part title piece nightly for a week in early November 2004. The Parker solo is from November 3rd, the centerpiece from three days later. Part 1 begins in a flurry of zippers, catches, and locks coming undone in one glorious catharsis (then again, catharsis may not be the right word, for the end of every tunnel begins another). Violinist Phillipp Wachsmann is a prominent voice in Part 2. Jagged, cilial, and primordial, he playfully alludes to Arvo Pärt’s violin/piano version of Fratres amid a small explosion of squeals and giggles. The filaments of Part 3 wrap us in droning bliss, pianist Agustí Fernández continuing where he left off on Memory/Vision with deeply felt cartilage. The human voice (courtesy of Parker and Casserley) makes a rare EAE appearance in Part 4, adding considerable movement to the palette. Reeds crackle like logs in a settling fire, holding fast to the smoke that draws their spirit out, tendril by tendril. This leaves us with a taste of afterlife in Part 5, which glows among the embers left behind to a tune of humming sky, gilded by a veneer of high-pitched sweetness to the savory heart within.

The divisions between parts seem only nominal at first, sharing as they do the same blood in their veins, but upon closer listening they reveal distinct planes to the overall shape. The mounting electronic presence this time reveals the henna-patterned hand of technology in utterly glowing ways and forges an unforgettable experience that is atmospheric to the core. Like any EAE session, this will challenge as many as it delights. Either way, it’s worth taking a chance to see which camp you’ll fall in with.

Yelena Eckemoff: FORGET-me-NOT

| Tyran Grillo

Yelena Eckemoff
FORGET-me-NOT

Yelena Eckemoff piano
Mats Eilertsen double-bass
Marilyn Mazur drums and percussion
Recorded August 17 & 18, 2011
STC Recording Studios, Copenhagen, Denmark
Engineer: Andreas Hviid
Mixed by Rich Breen, Burbank, CA
Produced by Yelena Eckemoff

Readers of between sound and space will, I hope, be familiar with Yelena Eckemoff, who has been skirting the ECM fringe for some time now in her working relationships with such artists as Peter Erskine and, most recently, Marilyn Mazur. The latter provides a crisp and delectable palette to the Russian-born pianist’s latest effort, FORGET-me-NOT, which also features Tord Gustavsen recruit Mats Eilertsen on bass. From the breathy clusters of “Resurrection of a Dream” it is clear that Eckemoff has written yet another distinct chapter in the storybook moods of her compositional development. Against a backdrop of twittering percussion and arco haunts she carries us through this slick opener with equal parts style and fortitude, riffing on the ether with her most unbound pianism yet. Mazur is splendid on cymbals amid a bevy of colorful kin, Eilertsen firm yet sensitive, soloing as if in memory of the lullaby that brought us here. Thus set, the album’s tone moves in shades through the child-like wonders of the title track to its densest dramas in “Welcome a New Day.” Along the way Eckemoff treats us to not a few surprises, of which the crumbling edifice of “Maybe” paints perhaps the most intriguing. The punctilious “Sand-Glass” further hones the set’s serrations and leaves us prepared to dissect the delightful little groove that is “Five” (in both title and number). Eckemoff’s classical roots come to the fore in “Schubert’s Code.” Making its timid entrance onto a stage draped with patterns of the nineteenth century, it nevertheless sparkles with clear and present reflections and showcases a real feel for detail. “Quasi Sonata,” on the other hand, rolls out the retro on a smaller scale and feels most like fleeting reminiscence. The pleasant dissonances sprinkled throughout “Seven” (in title but not in number) also bring us into the unexpected, a place where cascades and stepwise chains share a drink and a smile, while the more erratic “Trapped in Time” brings us into a swing to remember, replete with Mazur’s solid rim hits and spiraling energies.


(photo by Nicola Fasano)

FORGET-me-NOT is an album without borders, a gallery of animate snapshots that float on the wind. Its fluid transitions hang like a necklace from the neck of a mother who stares through the window of her past and finds a thousand songs to sing. Let’s hope this is a sign of things to come for an artist who continues to add feathers to her wings with each new release.