The esteemed bassist and composer Michael Formanek hasn’t led a big-band recording until now, but with this release by his 18-piece Ensemble Kolossus he joins the ranks of state-of-the-art orchestral experimenters […] Working with longtime associates, Formanek nails every element of large-ensemble writing: sustained long forms with continuous development, lucid relationships between improvised and written material, details that ring out as part of a clearly articulated whole. Add to that a deep grasp of knotty grooves, free-form improv, fetching themes, and sweet, sweet swing. The sequencing is peerless […] Extraordinary.
Jon Garelick, The Boston Globe
Bassist/composer Michael Formanek playfully calls this 18-piece group Ensemble Kolossus: it represents a bold creative leap forward from his previous quartet recordings ‘Small Places’ (ECM, 2012) and ‘The Rub and Spare Change’ (ECM, 2010). […] ‘The Distance’ is a remarkable achievement, which Formanek's smaller ensembles have only hinted at.
Mark Sullivan All About Jazz
The fascinating eight-movement ‘Exoskeleton’ suite occupies the bulk of the disc and functions as its emotional center. Exuding a widescreen cinematic splendor, the suite comes with punchy rhythmic motifs, striking dissonant harmonic stretches, luring melodies and enough improvisational brio to sustain interest during its hour-plus duration […] Formanek’s ‘Exoskeleton’ has the makings of a 21st-century classic. It brims with rich melodicism, textural wonder and sonic imagination.
John Murph, Jazz Times
The ensemble has a remarkably intimate and austere sound that gracefully increases to dramatic full-ensemble roars. The core of the recording is an eight-part suite of Mr. Formanek’s called ‘Exoskeleton’. Each segment features stellar solos from the band members, sometimes with section-based harmonies as a sonic backdrop and at other times full orchestral contrasts. […] ‘The Distance’ offers a new blueprint for post-millenial orchestral jazz.
Martin Johnson, The Wall Street Journal
Da wird einem nicht pausenlos die gebündelte Kreativität der Beteiligten um die Ohren gehauen. Stattdessen werden alle gemeinsam den wunderbaren Kompositionen von Bassist Michael Formanek gerecht, der hier definitiv die beste Arbeit seiner bisherigen Laufbahn abliefert.
Wolf Kampmann, eclipsed
Unique and complex-yet approachable arrangements, vehemently vivacious soloing and a surprising array—through instrumental interplay—of new ideas on how a jazz orchestra ought to sound. A stunning achievement.
Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
‘The Distance’ is an album that is firmly rooted in the big band tradition while also moving it forward with provocative use of harmony and melody. Formanek, besides being a strong bassist, is a terrific writer, and the music allows the band and their individual talents to shine. The future for the Ensemble Kolossus is intriguing.
C.J. Shearn, Jazz Views
The title track is a vaporous tone-poem of slow horn-section outbreaths and delectable harmonies, while the other tracks comprise Formanek’s ambitious eight-part Exoskeleton suite. The luminous voicings of the 40s Birth of the Cool band or the slinky blues-swing of a Charles Mingus group appear in glimpses, but spiky melodies are as prevalent as mellifluous ones, while no-prisoners solos are bookended by low-register vamps and fast-moving ensemble parts fizzing with chases and echoes. […] a visionary big-band project.
John Fordham, The Guardian
Bei Musikern wie Tim Berne, Ralph Alessi oder Mary Halvorson denkt man nicht in erster Linie an Satzspieler in einem genau auskomponierten Klangbild. Diese US-Jazzer sind bekannt als kraftvolle Improvisatoren mit eigenem Sound. Der Bassist und Komponist Michael Formanek hat es mit seinem Ensemble Kolossus geschafft, diese charakteristischen Stimmen zu einem Ganzen zusammenzubringen. Dazu braucht es große Ohren und eine präzise Vision.
Peter Bürli, Kulturtipp
Michael Formanek has reimagined the tones and textures that these 18 familiar instruments can create together, and the result is, to say the least, unsettling. From massive blocks of solid sound to delicate, wandering melodies, this music is bewildering in its sheer, determined difference. But it’s also gripping, because the ensemble acts as a setting for a parade of remarkable soloists.
Dave Gelly, The Observer
Filled with engaging small-group sections and a recurring swirl of large-ensemble, angular hoedowns. The mood suggests a drunken or subterranean vibe, with constantly shifting and effective meters, the overall execution more patient than plodding, more like a slow-motion merry-go-round or roller coaster. […] Michael Formanek’s musical world is a kind of gracious envelopment of everyone present.
John Ephland, Downbeat (Five stars)
Die Stücke mit ihren zumeist dunklen Klangfarben, randvoll mit Emotionen, und der verspielte Kontrapunkt der Holzbläser fesseln und bewegen, und genau dieser Kontrast, dieser Gegenpol der höheren Lagen ist es , der die Musik Formaneks so faszinierend erscheinen lässt. Seine opulenten, hochkomplexen, an Klangfarben reichen Kompositionen klingen dabei wie ein frischer, avantgardistischer Mix aus Duke Ellington, Gil Evans und Sam Rivers.
Andreas Collet, Badische Zeitung
The Distance is hugely rewarding, big fun and fascinating by turns, and substantially expands on Formanek’s ECM quartet blueprint and all those acknowledged precedents. The ensemble has a big band’s heft for sure, with particular riches of timbre in the low end, but also a dextrousness and cogency that lets all of its members’ individualities count for something: a magnificent piece of work.
Tim Owen, Dalston Sound
Packed with bandleaders in their own own right, Kolossus gels powerfully as an ensemble in which composed and improvised parts fit into a strong conceptual core. The balance struck between understatement and emphasis – and the overall narrative richness – is such that the music works as much as a caress in the twilight as it does a punch under a harsh neon glare […] A work of impressive gravity rather than bombast, ‘The Distance’ is an epic that more than justifies its grand scale and lofty ambition.
Kevin Le Gendre, Jazzwise
Tatsächlich enthält Formaneks erstaunliches Opus neben mal entfesselten, mal, vor allem in den Blech-Passagen , bald à la Gil Evans opak schimmernden, bald wie bei Mingus explosiven Tuttis, viele Teilglieder, Untergruppen und kleinere Einheiten. Und, versteht sich, viel Freiraum für Ausflüge der aus der Crème der New Yorker Avantgarde prominent besetzten Solisten (die Saxophonisten Loren Stillman, Oscar Noriega, Chris Speed, Tim Berne, die Trompeter Dave Ballou und Ralph Alessi, die Posaunisten Alan Ferber und Ben Gerstein, die Gitarristin Mary Halvorson und den Pianisten Kris Davis, unter vielen anderen, abgesehen von Formanek selbst). […] Ein Meisterwerk, das dem Hörer vielleicht ein paar Anstrengungen abverlangt. Sie lohnen sich!
Peter Rüedi, Die Weltwoche
Mit seiner ersten Bigband-Aufnahme ist dem Bassisten Michael Formanek auf Anhieb ein zugleich subversives und anmutiges Meisterwerk geglückt. […] Statt 08/15-Big-Band-Routine bekommen wir dunkel dräuende Klangballungen, polytonale Polyphonien und verschlungene Melodien zu hören. Als Inspirationsquellen dienten Formanek nicht nur Jazz-Querdenker wie Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton und Henry Threadgill, sondern auch die Orgelwerke des Mystikers Olivier Messiaen.
Tom Gsteiger, St. Galler Tagblatt
Les ingredients assembles exhaussent continûment le gout du tout: délices de la forme, du son et du groove satisfaisant tout à la fois le corps et l’esprit comme un grand plat s’adresse autant aux pailles qu’ à l’imaginaire. Cette musique ne saurait se satisfaire d’une écoute distraite: qui pour dire que c’est un défaut?
Ludovic Florin, Jazz Magazine
Formanek benutzt einen Trick, um seine Hörer in seine verwinkelten Kompositionen zu ziehen: Das Titelstück ‘The Distance’ ist ein berührend schönes Big-Band-Arrangement, das im Rückblick aber nur das Gehör dafür öffnen soll, wie ästhetisch vollkommen und gleichzeitig modern eine Big Band heute klingen kann.
Andrian Kreye Süddeutsche Zeitung
Kolossus gels powerful as an ensemble in which composed and improvised parts fit into a strong conceptual core. The balance struck between understatement and emphasis - and the overall narrative richness - is such that the music works as much as a caress in the twilight as it does a punch under a harsh neon glare.
Kevin Le Gendre, Echoes
Formanek has created a work of arresting originality, connecting the ambiguous harmonies of Oliver Messiaen to the freedom of Charles Mingus, one that captures a moment in music, but one that will surely, with time, prove timeless.
Cormac Larkin, Irish Times
This quite simply is a magnificent album, both in terms of the magnitude of the undertaking in bringing together the 18 strong Ensemble Kolossus, and in the depth and richness of the writing. Having recorded two critically acclaimed small group sessions for ECM, ‘The Rub and Spare Change’ (2010) and ‘Small Places’ (2012), this represents a big leap forward and one that Formanek has made appear an easy transition. In assembling the large ensemble the bassist has sought the services of not just colleagues past and present with whose sound and concept he is intimately familiar but at the same time assembled some of the most forward thinking an innovative players on the New York scene. […] With the Ensemble working its way through Formanek's suite, the unified concept of the band as a living and breathing singular entity is firmly felt and amidst the sonic palette drawn from the organ works of Messiaen, and a nod to the orchestrations of Charles Mingus, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill and Sun Ra the scope of this extraordinary music becomes apparent. Despite, or maybe even because of this, somehow Ensemble Kolossus have gelled together with Michael Formanek's concept and each other that the bassist feels able to further loosen the reins, and gives the final movement, 'Part VIII - Metamorphic' over to a full ensemble collective improvisation that is full of vitality and depth of purpose that it fits as a natural finale to what has gone before. Contemporary big band writing, arranging and performance does not get much better than this.
Nick Lea, Jazz Views
After two widely acclaimed quartet albums for ECM Formanek re-imagines the function of a big band, adopting the term ‘ensemble’ to avoid the long-disputed issue of what constitutes an orchestra in jazz terms. With a personnel that is, if not star-studded, certainly dotted with tremendous distinction, this could hardly fail to be a fascinating project. […] Some solos are relatively orthodox compared with Formanek’s scoring concepts, but that hardly matters since the players are all first-class and those solos are full of excitement and interest.
Barry Witherden, Jazz Journal (Five stars)
Ein beeindruckendes Modell zeitgenössischen Big-Band-Stils […] das Moderne und Avantgarde bruchlos integriert.
Hans-Dieter Grünefeld, HiFi+Records
