Palle Mikkelborg

Palle Mikkelborg/Jakob Bro/Marilyn Mazur: Strands (ECM 2812)

| Tyran Grillo

Palle Mikkelborg
Jakob Bro
Marilyn Mazur
Strands

Palle Mikkelborg trumpet, flugelhorn
Jakob Bro guitar
Marilyn Mazur percussion
Recorded live at the Danish Radio Concert Hall
Copenhagen, February 2023
Engineer: Thomas Vang
Cover photo: Jan Kricke
An ECM Production
Release date: November 24, 2023

Recorded in February 2023 at the Danish Radio Concert Hall, this live performance convenes trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg, guitarist Jakob Bro, and percussionist Marilyn Mazur in what Bro has described as a “homecoming.” The trio’s free exploration of original material leaves the faintest of fingerprints on the air, so all we are left with are impressions, memories, and instincts to hold on to. And yet, for all their ephemerality, they are undeniably indelible.

Bro contributes most of the tunes, although to call them that risks undermining the quasi-physical stretching each undergoes before it coalesces into something recognizable. All the while, there is something familiar about even the most abstract passages of examination. The first proof of this theorem is Bro’s “Gefion,” an eponymous nod to his ECM leader debut. It opens with echoing horn, sparkling percussion (including bowed metals for added shimmer), and a web of dreams strung across the night to catch as many falling stars as possible in the afterglow. “Oktober” waters the same seeds, unfolding as a piece of paper, each rectangle a scene waiting to be sketched in by the writing instruments of memory. Mikkelborg is like a ghost in the background while Mazur’s hand drums flutter in search of a body to house it. The feeling of stasis is so profound as to hold the listener suspended between materiality and immateriality. By contrast, “Returnings” (co-written by Mikkelborg and Bro) brings a more wrought-iron sound to bear. Speaking in the language of guttural distortion, while electronics flash through the foreground, it brings plenty of fuel to keep it burning. Mazur’s ritualistic beatings imbue an ancient charge, finishing in gossamer stretches of wisdom.

The title track and the concluding “Lyskaster” find their composer weaving his guitar into a hammock. Its gentle sway gives life to the dreams of his bandmates, melting into a swath of desert where forces not only align but also pass through each other. Between them is Mikkelborg’s “Youth.” Mazur’s understated fervency gives color, while Bro expands the view beyond the stage to reveal a world without borders.

Fans of Jon Hassell will find much to admire in this album, which, of course, has its own feel for texture and storytelling. A special document for fans of any of these three musicians, if not all.

Shankar: Vision (ECM 1261)

| Tyran Grillo

Shankar
Vision

Shankar 10-string double violin, percussion
Jan Garbarek tenor, soprano and bass saxophones, percussion
Palle Mikkelborg trumpet, fluegelhorn
Recorded April 1983 at Talent Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

After the masterstroke of Who’s To Know, perhaps it was inevitable that the growing ECM pool would provide unusual collaborative opportunities for the 10-string stereophonic electric violin of L. Shankar. And that we certainly are given in Vision, an unearthly journey that finds him in the company of saxophonist Jan Garbarek and trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg. The former is a no-brainer for this date, while the latter provides an ethereal depth to the already expansive sound. Shankar’s violin is heavily flanged throughout, an effect that does grow tiresome after a while. But such caveats hardly register in the melodious hearth in which they burn.

One need only follow the pizzicato footsteps of “All For You” to get acquainted with the album’s beauties and to feel the shadows of Garbarek and Mikkelborg flying overhead. With this exuberant awakening still echoing inside us, we can only close our eyes in the title track. Amid the raspy breath of the violin’s lower strings, the air itself vibrates with a cosmic growl, as if some enormous lioness were slowly coming out of her shell in Terje Rypdal’s dreams. Through the glacial slides of “Astral Projection,” Garbarek and Mikkelborg etch a flock of shooting stars in a slow-moving tide of meditation. “Psychic Elephant” follows in much the same vein as the opener, blossoming into a pizzicato line that one could listen to for hours on its own. This time around, Mikkelborg dons the ether like a cloak, while Garbarek surprises with rare turns on drums and bass saxophone. Only here does Shankar lose himself in more pronounced streams of life before the solitude of “The Message” carries us into stasis.

I wasn’t fully convinced by this album the first time I heard it, yet as I have grown with it, so too has it grown with me: proof positive of its power to transcend the disc on which it was recorded and find sanctum in the human heart.

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