In der spektakulären Soloperformance vom 2. März 2020 aus dem Wiener Konzerthaus ist zu hören, wie er das Klavier als Orchester behandelt, wird zum Abenteuer. Jede Etappe fasziniert durch ihre Klangarchitektur, die Musik – zwei Stücke sind 17-18 Minuten lang – wächst in den Himmel, wie ein nächtlich erleuchteter Wolkenkratzer.
Karl Lippegaus, Deutschlandfunk
Diese neue emblematische Figur im Bereich des Solo-Pianos spielt gekonnt im Bereich des Unbewussten, das bei seinen Improvisationen zweifellos eine große Rolle spielt. Die sieben Kompositionen oder Impro-Kompositionen nit dem prohetisch wirkenden Wusch ‘Now in Hope’ als Abschluss wirken wie ein erratischer Block: Keine Suche nach möglichen Einflüssen und eingewobenen Zitaten trübt diesen Planeten auf eigener Umlaufbahn in einer sehr hektisch gewordenen Musiklandschaft. Gleichzeitig wirken diese Aufnahmen auch wie eine Ode an die Kreativität der Stille.
Ruedi Ankli, Jazz’n’more
‘Shadow Plays’ documents an improvised solo piano performance given in Vienna in 2020, and there are multiple through lines that give the music a rare cohesion as he moves from notion to notion. The recording opens with the lengthy ‘Bird Templars’, one of several pieces where the pianist’s tireless vibrato provides a shimmering grace and quiet tension. A steady two-note flurry holds his wide-ranging excursion together (with a fluttery rhythmic quality that suggests the avian reference in its title), as injections of space and modulation of energy reshape the basic material from a sonic block into discrete shapes that both stand on their own or fade into a whispered support for a new left-handed melody that emerges from the thrum. The piece builds to a dark crescendo, driven as much by bracing harmony as ramped-up intensity, and it circles to its conclusion with an utterly natural, cliché-free recapitulation of the tremolo figure. It’s nicely representative of how the pianist operates throughout the recording, laying out an idea that’s in constant transformation. […] In lesser hands Taborn’s instincts might feel like a pastiche, but his ability to incorporate fleeting concepts – inexorably logical in context and deployed without a hiccup – proves electrifying in its quicksilver spontaneity. Breaking down each piece – ultimately artificial markers in a single, uncarved block of music – misses the point of what the pianist achieves here. […] I remain wowed by how much demanding music is contained on ‘Shadow Plays’ – yet another substantive transmission from one of the greatest pianists of our time.
Peter Margasak, We Jazz Magazine
Die uneingeschränkte Bewunderung hat jener aberwitzigen Power zu gelten, den ganz selbstverständlich ausgespielten, sich hochkomplex überlagernden rhythmischen Patterns und einer bei aller Noch-Sangbarkeit eigenwillig abstrakten Melodieführung.
Tom Fuchs, Piano News
Extremely skilled in the way he explores his instrument, the modern creative pianist Craig Taborn involves us in a drape of sounds and textures that range from literate to empowering and from rigorous to freewheeling. Fully improvised and recorded live, his second ECM solo piano effort, ‘Shadow Plays’, starts with the 17-minute ‘Bird Templars’, where an ostinato-driven flux coalesces with deliberate bass notes, implying, by turns, electronic music build-ups, modern classical streams and pop music progressions. Avoiding to clutter the music by carefully weighing every element, Taborn remains wedded to music in all its forms, exploring calm waves and juxtaposed rhythms with the same dedicated passion. […] This recording illustrates what Taborn is capable of when his extravagant imagination comes alive. The more you revisit it, the more you take pleasure from what’s being offered.
Filipe Freitas, Jazz Trail
Das Album ist komplett improvisiert und demonstriert Taborns erstaunliche Fähigkeiten, sein Material zu strukturieren. Der über eine Viertelstunde dauernde Opener ‘Bird Templars’ spielt mit minimalistischen und impressionistischen Motiven, bei denen man zeitweilig vergisst, dass Taborn an einem Flügel sitzt. An anderen Stellen des Albums, beispielsweise in ‘Conspiracy Of Things’, kommt er wesentlich kantiger daher. Anklänge an das historische Stride-Piano werden mit avantgardistischen Waghalsigkeiten kombiniert.
Rolf Thomas, Jazzthing
Aus den minimalistisch gesetzten Wiederholungen der Eingangssequenz schält sich allmählich lyrisches Melodiematerial. Was geeignet wäre, sich und das Publikum in Trance zu versetzen, bleibt letztlich nur ein Pol im kontraststarken Spiel des Detroiter Pianisten. Ein anderer Pol zeigt sich in rhythmisch-harmonischen Reibungen, die ebenso unberechenbar entstehen wie vergehen, so im zunächst kantig gehämmerten ‘Discordia Concors’, dem zweiten Titel dieses Konzertmitschnitts vom März 2020. […] also erneut ein panistischer Parcours zwischen ‘heilig und mußevoll’ (Gottfried Keller) hergestellter Ruhe und dissonant aufgeladenen, aufwühlenden, ja vulkanisch-explosiven Passagen. Doch so schnell die Klaviertöne perlen, so massiv sich Energien entladen, so plötzlich die Stimmungen schwenken: Taborns spontanes Spiel wirkt keine Sekunde gehetzt. Und so ruhig-flächig, mitunter Satie-haft sich Akkorde reihen, so gefühlvoll die leisen Klavierregister zur Geltung gebracht werden, so oft auch Langsamkeit sich bemerkbar macht: Taborns unkonventionelle Stilistk tendiert nie zur Schläfrigkeit. Am Ende des siebenteiligen Abends, nach der in großen Bögen gezeichneten Nummer ‘Shadow Play’, eine nochmalige Auslotung seiner musikalischen Mittel und seiner begrüßenswert eigenwilligen Idee von ‘spontaner Komposition’: ‘Now Is Hope’. Ein substanzielles Versprechen für die Zukunft.
Wolfgang Gratzer, Jazzpodium
It’s an ethereal tour de force. Across seven pieces, tart phrases are expanded on through insistent repetition; meandering lines look anxiously for a direction; the left and right hand do call and respond, but then agree to differ. Sometimes he gives the impression of playing backwards. It’s sonic poetry in its purest form.
Garry Booth, BBC Music Magazine (Five out five stars)
Unmittelbar vor dem ersten Lockdown im März 2020 gab Craig Taborn im Wiener Konzerthaus bei laufenden Aufnahmegeräten noch dieses Solokonzert. Dabei gelang dem Pianisten das Paradox, freie Improvisation quasi vom Ende her zu denken. Mehrheitlich von ruhigen Stimmungen, kleinen, wandelbaren Motiven ausgehend, entwickelte Taborn pianistische Narrative, die bei aller Spontaneität an der Konstruktion einer übergeordneten Struktur zu arbeiten scheinen. Taborn kann Klänge einfach stehen lassen, Obertöne auskosten, verdichtet, verwirbelt aber da, wo es dem Spannungsaufbau dienlich und für das Gesamtbild notwendig ist. Sein Spiel berührt mit einer intellektuell gefilterten Zärtlichkeit , die niemals gefühlig wird.
Reinhold Unger, Münchner Merkur
‘Shadow Plays’ begins as subtly as ‘Avenging Angel’. You’d be advised to turn up the volume or you might miss the nuanced highlights at the beginning of ‘Bird Templars,’ the 17-minute track that opens the recording, as the music begins sparsely, building toward gale force, then retreating with elegance. That pattern is repeated on one other lengthy track, ‘Shadow Play.’ Meanwhile, Taborn’s lighter side shines on the whimsically titled pair, ‘Discordia Concors’ and ‘Concordia Discors.’ The program closes with the graceful sophistication of ‘Now in Hope,’ which is followed by a thunderous ovation, suggesting that the demand for Taborn’s solo work may be too strong to let it go another decade before he revisits the setting.
Martin Johnson, Jazz Times
Taborn ist tatsächlich ein ebenso formbewusster wie spontaner Improvisator. Jetzt ist bei ECM der Mitschnitt eines Solokonzerts im Wiener Konzerthaus erschienen, zehn Jahre nach dem ersten Soloalbum (‘Avenging Angel’). Reissen die Solokonzerte von Keith Jarrett den Zuhörer via magische Überwältigung in einem Stream of Consciousness mit, ist Taborn eher der Konstrukteur, der von einzelnen Miniaturen ausgeht und deren Potenzial entwickelt und formt, immer auch in Hinblick auf die Meta-Architektur des Konzerts. Mir scheint, dabei gehe er nicht von Emotionen aus – sie sind das Resultat dieser Musik. Die ist mal näher, mal ferner zu dem, was wir uns unter Jazz vorstellen. Am Ende des Wiener Rezitals hinterlässt uns jedenfalls eine Art Ballade mit dem Titel ‘Now in Hope’ sprachlos. In ihr wird Schönheit immer wieder beschworen, und immer wieder zerbröckelt sie. Schmerzlich und sehnsuchtsvoll. Und genial. Wie dieses Konzert insgesamt.
Peter Rüedi, Weltwoche
Ein Musiker, der zu großer Poesie fähig ist, ein Meister auch der ganz leisen Töne und nur graduellen Veränderungen. Im Wiener Konzerthaus ließ er sich im März 2020 einfach treiben und nahm sein Publikum mit auf eine Reise, aus der man auf der heimischen Anlage erst nach 76 Minuten wie aus einem Traum erwacht. Erstaunlich.
Holger True, Hamburger Abendblatt
A technically brilliant keyboards player who has played in numerous different formats – you can learn more about him here or search above for more recent coverage – he is one of the most impressive musicians around when it comes to composing on the spot. That is what he does on this latest solo piano concert recording, made in March 2020 at a performance at the Vienna Konzerthaus. There are seven tracks, mostly extended – the shortest are just shy of six minutes, the longest running around 18 or 19 minutes – so that they generally course through a variety of tempi and moods, from quietly lyrical to danceably funky, gently meditative to powerfully exhilarating, melodically simple to experimentally abstract. But they always sound typically Taborn in terms of their sheer invention, their questing audacity and their musical sophistication. […] I can’t see how this won’t end up one of my favourite albums of the year.
Geoff Andrew, Notes & Observations
Was Taborn an diesem Abend in einem komplett improvisierten Konzert für einen musikalischen Kosmos erschaffen hat, ist schlicht phänomenal. Man höre sich nur an, wie er im 17-minütigen Eröffnungsstück ‘Bird Templars’ mit verschiedenen Tremolofiguren im Dialog weit ausladende Klangräume erschafft, wie er Motive in verschiedenen Klangschichten platziert, so dass sie mal nah und mal fern wirken, mit welchem Klangsinn er aus einzelnen Tonfeldern melodische Linien entwickelt und wie er mit rhythmischen Verschiebungen experimentiert und dadurch eine Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen suggeriert. Das ist definitiv ein Album für die einsame Insel!
Mario Felix Vogt, Pianist
The adventures take many different forms. Taborn invariably makes pieces unfold without clear ‘sectional’ marking so that changes of atmosphere as well as structure can be disarming and exciting. There is a fluid quality to the material here as if a rhythmic line was a succession of waves rushing back and forth that blend into brilliantly distilled, paired-down motifs that have contrastingly rugged, physical timbres, like a rock emerging from water. Sometimes Reichian repetitions are set against melancholic, slow melodic bass lines that have an enormous emotional weight, as one note at a time drops into misty, cavernous spaces. However, the tension is also created by very controlled shifts in volume as well as harmony, and if stillness, composure, restraint and omission are crucial to the endeavor then Taborn also fashions some daringly muscular, staccato grooves. […] all the stylistic range and deeply personal synthesis of many musical histories conspire to make Craig Taborn a very unique 21st century artist.
Kevin Le Gendre, Jazzwise
‘Avenging Angel’, his widely acclaimed improvised solo debut, appeared from ECM a decade ago. ‘Shadow Plays’, a sequel, was improvised live in 2020 at the Mozart-Saal of the Wiener Konzerthaus in Austria. […] ‘Shadow Plays’ is as full of surprise and imagination as it is canny, musical logic. Where ‘Avenging Angel’ opened our ears to Taborn’s consummate abilities to compose and organize simultaneously without surrendering his creativity, ‘Shadow Plays’ extends that by offering a profound sense of intimacy with instrument and audience. It delivers fantastical groups of ideas that flow without undue force or ego to become something that is at once wondrous and revelatory.
Thom Jurek, All Music
On the evening of March 2, 2020, just a few weeks before much of the world came to a screeching halt due to the deadly pandemic, Taborn improvised on the piano for an hour and 16 minutes. Divided into seven passages, ‘Shadow Plays’ is every bit as exploratory, daring and abstract as one would expect from a forward-thinking artist like Taborn. ‘Shadow Plays’ will probably be classified as ‘jazz’ largely due to convenience. Taborn does make his living from playing jazz and the ECM label has released hundreds of albums from jazz artists over the decades. But ‘Shadow Plays’ is an album that is far too sprawling in nature to have one tidy genre label. ‘Conspiracy of Things’ could pass for Taborn riffing on a Monk melody, but lengthy pieces like ‘Concordia Discors’ will find him waxing American pastoral one moment and channeling his inner Cecil Taylor the next as he pounces on all 12 tones in a matter of seconds […] If there is a moment on ‘Shadow Plays’ that attempts to bring this all together, it would have to be the title track. Stretching over 18-and-a-half minutes, you could hardly call it a distillation. In absence of brevity, ‘Shadow Plays’ takes you on a bewildering ride that showcases Taborn’s skill for building tension in addition to deep improvisation. […] The New York Times described Taborn’s interests as ‘galactically-broad,’ but after spending time with ‘Shadow Plays’, it feels like they were lowballing it.
John Garratt, Spectrum Culture
Rightfully acclaimed as one of the most impressive and imaginative pianists currently treading the jazz boards, Craig Taborn has played everything from hard bop to avant-garde to fusion to electronica, sitting comfortably in every situation and bringing his own distinctive style to all of them. His fourth album as a leader for ECM, ‘Shadow Plays’ is also his second solo piano record for the label […] Though every note is unplanned, it doesn’t sound like it – ‘Bird Templars,’ the longform piece that opens the record, comes off like an epic piece of concert music given life by a particularly committed performer. The thread with which Taborn begins seems comprised of strains of classical music more than jazz, but Taborn follows it with logical precision, weaving a majestic tapestry by letting the music tell him where it needs to go and why. Expansive, challenging and, above all, musical, this track could well become a standard in the repertoire of solo pianists everywhere. […] Given Taborn’s maverick abilities as both improviser and composer, it’s tempting to compare ‘Shadow Play’ to similarly boundary-pushing solo piano LPs by fellow iconoclasts Cecil Taylor and Keith Jarrett (also an ECM mainstay). But that’s a lazy person’s move – as an artist, Taborn stands on his own.
Michael Toland, The Big Takeover
La duttilità stilistica, la capacità di costruire improvvisazione con logica ad ampio respiro, la tenace attitudine esplorativa, la tecnica sopraffina fanno di Craig Taborn una figura di spicco della musica contemporanea. Lo conferma questa nuova prova in piano solo, pubblicata da ECM a dieci anni di distanza dal precedente ‘Avenging Angel’, sempre stampato dall’etichetta di Monaco, che fu la prima pubblicazione di un suo lavoro in solitudine: un disco memorabile, la cui ricchezza continua a stimolare tuttora l’ascolto. […] Taborn opera sulle densità e sulle forme con la stessa freschezza di ispirazione e con la stessa lucidità costruttiva di allora, ponendo un tassello che sembra arrivare immediato, senza soluzione di continuità temporale. Si tratta di un concerto registrato alla Wiener Konzerthaus nel marzo del 2020, basato totalmente sull’improvvisazione. […] Ogni brano salpa da un’idea, sulla quale altri percorsi si innestano con spontaneità, ma pure con marcato senso della composizione in tempo reale, un senso che, come abbiamo accennato, ha la capacità di svilupparsi secondo un periodare ad ampie campiture, dove ogni digressione, ogni ramificazione, ogni stimolo si colloca dentro una mappa di logica ampia e impeccabile. E parlare di mappa sarebbe un tantino riduttivo: si potrebbe parlare di plastico, vista la tridimensionalità a incastri volumetrici del pensiero di Taborn, spesso irriverente ma sempre coerente. […] Procede così l’itinerario in un rigoglioso giardino delle meraviglie, fino al conclusivo ‘Now in Hope,’ che dopo l’ipnotico ‘A Code with Spell’ e il lunghissimo, sontuoso ‘Shadow Play,’ torna su atmosfere colloquiali, con un tema molto bello e suggestivi inserti free, simbolisti/espressionisti, di nuovo in grado di lasciare l’ascoltatore ammaliato. Tra un ascolto e l’altro, tra gli stupori e le continue scoperte, resta un solo rimpianto: non essere stati presenti fisicamente a Vienna, a quel concerto straordinario. Album della settimana.
Giuseppe Segala, All About Jazz Italy
Craig Taborn offre ici une vision fort personnelle de ce que peut être le piano jazz en solo : subtile, sophistiqué et parfois véhément, orageux, emporté.
Jean-Claude Vantroyen, Le Soir
To hear Taborn in person is a riveting experience and, listening to the seven tracks on this new release, it’s easy to tap into the immediacy of his concert performances. […] The title cut serves as a masterstroke. At more than 18 minutes, it’s the most dramatic of the collection. Here, he places brusque chords and skittering interjections alongside flowing melodies and intervallic repetition, transcending toward a cusp where these opposing impulses no longer seem to conflict. The line where shadow and light converge, Taborn seems to say, is a thin one.
Suzanne Lorge, Downbeat
Improvised, yes, but the formal command is such that the press notes’ term ‘spontaneous composition’ is apt. Taborn often likes to build from repeated rhythmic-melodic cells — a few notes or chords — and work them over obsessively as other ideas begin to stream out of him. Quiet passages melt away in ghostly sustains or merge with new ideas, the short, repeated patterns in one hand answered with longer phrases or unfolding melodies in the other. To borrow a term from visual artists, Taborn is noteworthy for his ‘variety of mark-making’: contrasting dynamics, varied textures and lines — smooth-flowing arpeggios and soft chords or darting, jumpy single-note runs and pounding chords, all executed with stunning finger work. There are no tossed off romps here, and barely — except in a couple of spots — a hint at standard swing rhythms, nothing that even creates the illusion of an impromptu. This is work, maybe not for the listener, but certainly the artistic process as Taborn presents it. […] But Taborn has an astonishing ability to sustain narrative tension over long spans of improvisation. Two of the seven pieces here are over 17 minutes long, and only a couple are under six minutes. The opener, ‘Bird Templars’ (Knight Templars in service to Bird?), works its magic over an insistent trebly tremolo answered by widely spaced notes that don’t enter until the 49-second mark and then take nearly two minutes to wend their way down a major scale to the resolving tonic. That’s not a lot of musical action. But the narrative tension — the sense of anticipation — never lets up. […] The disc never settles into sameness, and that narrative expectancy is always there, the conversation between left and right hands never resting, the ceaseless invention and virtuoso musicianship presenting one surprising event after another.
Jon Garelick, Arts Fuse
When Craig Taborn released ‘Avenging Angel’, his solo-piano debut on the German-based ECM label, his reputation in left-field jazz was just starting to grow. Subsequent ECM recordings ranged from alt-fusion combos to piano duets and took in both free jazz and rigorously constructed work. A decade on, his focus has sharpened, his approach is more distinct, and he is recognised as a major influence in contemporary jazz. Here he returns to solo performance with ‘Shadow Plays’, a through-improvised recital from the Mozart Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus, recorded live in March last year. It finds the Detroit-born pianist delivering spontaneous masterworks with a majestic sense of form and captures his robust touch and uncanny sense of space in pristine sound. […] Taborn’s free-improvising aesthetic strives to give an overarching logic to the unplanned. That first piece is so artfully constructed that it seems previously composed. Impressively, he sustains that control of mood and focus throughout the set. […] Although the Taborn style overlaps with contemporary classical music, the emotional drive and pulse reverberate with jazz. The rolling left hand and repeated figures of ‘A Code with Spells’ have clear jazz roots and the album’s 18-minute title track references jazz history in passing asides.
Mike Hobart, Financial Times
There is a freshness about Taborn’s playing as he uses dynamics with subtlety. He varies tempos, enjoys reverbs, uses the wide range of the piano, the pedals. He is genuinely someone who uses both hands not to hammer a message but to create contrasting messages that complement melodies. […] Craig Taborn sits at the piano and creates musical shapes that are unique with nods towards raga, ostinatos that are contrasted with melodies, heavy dynamics, contrasted with gentleness, playing with speed and slowness, to enjoy the contrast between the two hands. He is not afraid of leaving space. Taborn talks about disappearing into his music, about being unaware of the inspiration. Maybe that is the way to listen, to disappear into his music, to suspend criticism and just surrender to the creative grooves, textures, rhythms, dynamics, motives and motifs and to isolate the uniqueness of the music. Try not to understand, just surrender to the playing and sit back to revel in his creativity, his skill and his subtlety. Bursting with a new kind of jazz, glorying with invention. There are so many pianistic delights: the way that he can carefully lower the volume in the left hand while being more forceful with the right. Notes in the right-hand trickle across the piano while underneath a steady motif flows. Single notes are clipped separate by use of pedals to cut them short so that they don’t smear into one another. This is a new way of playing that demands a new way of listening. It is an exhausting listen because so much music is happening and all of it is intelligent, challenging. You won’t be swept away in a maelstrom. You need to follow the beauty of the piano and the beauty of individual notes.
Jack Kenny, Jazz Views
À chaque nouveau morceau, Craig Taborn cherche à créer un monde différent, avec une musique parfois austère et rigoureuse mais toujours généreuse. Un motif émerge et il ‘s en empare pour le developper jusqu’ à ce que les modifications successives l’aient transformé, créant une atmosphere différente et pourtant familière. […] Ce qui fascine le plus ici, au-delà de l’admiration que suscite un tel savoir-faire, c’est la mise en œuvre de cette inventivité pure par laquelle le pianiste, comme tous le grands créateurs, agit sur son matériau pour faire advenir l’incroyable. Sa carrière avançant, Taborn parvient toujours davantage à laisser libre cours au flux de son inconscient. […] Un disque loin de tout dogme qui témoigne d’un imaginaire à nul autre pareil, servi par une technique sans équivalent.
Ludovic Florin, Jazz Magazine
Frei improvisierte Konzerte sind ein besonderes Erlebnis. Das war bei Keith Jarretts Soloauftritten so, und das ist bei Craig Taborn nicht anders. Am 2. März 2020 setzte er sich im Wiener Konzerthaus an den Flügel, entlockte ihm ein an Vogelgezwitscher erinnerndes Flirren, stoppte es mit dunklen Tönen, ließ es wieder aufblühen. Die siebzehnminütige Improvisation ‘Bird Templars’ spiegelt das Hin und Her mit einem kleiner und leiser werdenden Vogelschwarm. Ähnlich sensibel formen sich in den sechs weiteren Stücken aus knappen Motiven strukturierte Tonerzählungen. Bei allem Auf und Ab entfernt er sich nie völlig vom Kern des Motivs.
Werner Stiefele, Stereoplay
Taborns Ansatz ist ein poetischer, assoziativer – der Pianist entwickelt die Dinge aus dem Moment heraus und nennt es ‘die weite Klangwelt, die ich ständig höre.’ Jedes Detail, jede Phrase, jeder Inspirationsschub haben Katalysatorwirkung für das große Ganze, und wie dies alles organisch ineinanderfließt, ist schier unglaublich. Formsinn, Dynamik, Anschlag, Eloquenz, Logik und Präzision sind frappierend.
Karl Lippegaus, Fono Forum
Chez Taborn, chaque detail compte. La moindre phrase ou virgule peut être l’ occasion de bâtir une réflexion à la clairvoyance formelle tenue de bout en bout, de suspensions en abstractions, de cascades aux sonorités minerals en profonds échos dans les graves. Tout y semble parfaitement ciselé: rien n’y est pourtant prepare. Appelons ca la beauté du geste, ici et maintenant.
Jacques Denis, Libération