Tracé Provisoire

Dominique Pifarély Quartet

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Dominique Pifarély’s quartet, with long-time musical companions Chevillon and Merville and newer associate Antonin Rayon, provides a marvelous context for the full range of the French violinist’s expression. Pifarély thrives in the unstable territory between improvisation and composition. His pieces here establish ideas, structural elements and themes – provisional traces – to encourage textural, lyrical and abstract improvising to develop energetically in the moment. The interplay amongst the players is consistently dynamic and engaging, and Pifarély is inspired to some of his finest soloing. Tracé Provisoire was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in July 2015.
Dominique Pifarélys Quartett mit seinen langjährigen musikalischen Mitstreitern Chevillon und Merville sowie dem später hinzugekommenen Antonin Rayon bietet einen wunderbaren Kontext für das gesamte Ausdrucksspektrum des französischen Geigers. Pifarélys Spiel entfaltet sich im eigentlich unsicheren Gelände zwischen Improvisation und Komposition prächtig. Seine Stücke stellen hier Ideen, Strukturelemente und Themen  – vorläufige Spuren („tracés provisoires“) – die energiegeladenes Improvisieren ermutigen. Das Zusammenspiel der Musiker ist durchgängig dynamisch und einnehmend, es inspiriert Pifarély zu einigen seiner besten Soli. Tracé Provisoire wurde im Juli 2015 in den Studios von La Buissonne in Südfrankreich aufgenommen.
Featured Artists Recorded

July 2015, Studios La Buissonne, Pernes les Fontaines

Original Release Date

03.06.2016

  • 1Le peuple efface (Part 1)
    (Dominique Pifarély)
    05:37
  • 2Tracé provisoire (Part 1)
    (Dominique Pifarély)
    07:45
  • 3Le peuple efface (Part 2)
    (Dominique Pifarély)
    07:09
  • 4Vague (Part 1)
    (Dominique Pifarély)
    06:31
  • 5Le regard de Lenz
    (Dominique Pifarély)
    09:26
  • 6Tracé provisoire (Part 2)
    (Dominique Pifarély)
    06:31
  • 7Tout a déjà commencé
    (Dominique Pifarély)
    13:34
  • 8Vague (Part 2)
    (Dominique Pifarély)
    06:58
Sein heute bei ECM erscheinende Album ‚Tracé provisoire‘ ist in der Art, wie es auskomponierte und improvisierte Passagen verquickt, von bezwingender Geschlossenheit und Offenheit. Die Musik durchquert heißere und kühlere Klimazonen, feilt an minimalen Klangereignissen und gerät dann wieder ins Fließen, ja ins Grooven, bis abrupte Rhythmuswechsel neue Motive ins Spiel bringen. Geräuschhaftes wie Melodisches intoniert Pifarély dank überragender Technik gleich überzeugend. Besonders mit seinem Kontrabassisten Bruno Chevillon verbindet ihn ein inniges Verständnis – und eine instrumentale Verwandtschaft zwischen Groß und Klein […] Aber auch Drummer François Merville und Pianist Antonin Rayon, der subtile Abstraktion und Wucht vereint, tragen das ihre zu dieser alle Klischees hinter sich lassenden Musik bei.
Gregor Dotzauer, Tagesspiegel
 
Spacey free-improv bass-plucks and cymbal flickers shadow Pifarély’s plaintive, sitar-like skids and sudden gleams of mellow tonality, before pumping grooves spring up, and cello-like bass sounds dance with fragile violin lines until minimalist piano loops intervene. There are collective jazzy chatterings against surging drums, piano reveries that unfold over soft mallet taps, and slow laments such as the dolorous ‘Vague (Pt 2)’ become ghostly mid-range violin meditations over punctilious bass and drum details. Everything a Pifarély band plays sounds as if it has a rich and reflective old and new music history to it.
John Fordham, The Guardian
 
Crazy. Odd. Weird. Spooky. All these words can apply. Somewhere within the constructs of total improvisation -- music made in the moment -- and compositional awareness, Bach meets Monk […] It starts so slow your mind wanders, but […] a symbiosis is achieved via the telepathic empathy of the musicians. They've played with each other for years despite only forming this quartet in 2014. It's all rather indescribable, like listening to the fluttering of butterfly wings, but from its humble vague beginnings, a pattern emerges that stokes the senses where by the time a second -- and completely different -- version of ‘Vague’ closes it all out, you sit there mesmerized, wondering about what you've just heard.
Mike Greenblatt, Classicalite
 
Der Chamber Jazz des Dominique Pifarély Quartet ist von einer mitunter spröden Introvertiertheit und dennoch klar konturiert und äußerst klangfarbenreich. ‚Le regard de Lenz‘ betitelt sich ein Stück, und etwas von dem hochnervösen Blick, mit dem der arme Lenz bei Büchner auf s Gebirg, Gesträuch und Gewölk blickt, hat sich wohl auf die schneidend sensible Nervenmusik der vier formidablen Herren übertragen.
Klaus Nüchtern, Falter
 
Was dieses Quartett vorführt, ist ein hochdynamisches, kontrastreiches Interagieren, (einem jahrelangen Experimentieren mit Klängen, Gesten und Formen, vielen Begegnungen mit Künstlern aller Sparten in Paris) und zudem einem breiten Interesse an Gegenwartskunst geschuldet nebst einer dezidiert zeitkritischen Haltung. Es ist nichts weniger als ein unerbittliches Forschen nach einer neuen Ästhetik, der Befreiung von Klischees und leeren Klanghülsen, historischem Ballast und falschem Schein […] Die Momente des Innehaltens, wie hier die Musik im Moment nachzudenken scheint – das ist so spannend mitzuerleben, dass man bisweilen fast den Atem anhält.
Karl Lippegaus, Fono Forum
Last year ECM issued Time Before And Time After, Dominique Pifarély’s richly creative solo recital. Now comes Tracé provisoire, a bracing quartet album, which provides a marvellous context for the wider range of the French violinist’s expression. Pifarély, as long-time followers are aware, is a musician who thrives in the unstable territory between improvisation and composition, and his pieces here establish ideas, structural elements and themes which encourage textural, lyrical and abstract improvising to develop in the moment. The interplay amongst the players is dynamic, exploratory and engaging, inspiring Dominique to fine and differentiated soloing. If the line-up of violin, piano, bass and drums appears more ‘jazz-like’ than some of Pifarély’s earlier ensembles, appearances can be deceptive. Jazz is certainly part of the story, but the band scarcely stays in one place long enough to be pigeonholed. The free movement of energy is central to the music, which incorporates group improvising, luminous counterpoint, intense inner pulsations and open, lyrical expanses.
 
This quartet was founded in the spring of 2014, but Pifarély, bassist Bruno Chevillon and drummer François Merville have been regularly crossing each other’s musical paths for a few decades. The violinist and bassist can be heard together, for instance, on Louis Sclavis’s album Chine, recorded 1987. Chevillon was on board when Pifarély and Sclavis recorded their Acoustic Quartet album for ECM in 1993. Dominique and François Merville played together with Sclavis on the Dans La Nuit project, with music for the silent movie by Charles Vanel (recorded in 2000). Dominique and Bruno played in the French-American quartet Out Of Joint with Tim Berne and Craig Taborn in 2009. The list of cross references goes on and on. Pifarély, Chevillon and Merville are cornerstone players of improvised music in France and they’ve brought new impulses to it, other ways of thinking about freedom and form.
 
Dominique’s approach to improvising incorporates an awareness of soloistic possibilities for his instrument reaching back to Bach and beyond, even as he perpetually searches for fresh contemporary possibilities, and “discontinuous canons and strange fugues” belong to his music’s formal devices. Bruno Chevillon’s detailed playing makes poetic use of light and shade and texture, befitting a player who counts Pasolini and Scelsi amongst his influences, as well as jazz’s innovators. Merville was a chamber musician firstly, touring with Boulez and the Ensemble InterContemporain in the early 90s, in parallel with improvisational activities, and sensitivity to sound and colour has long been a hallmark of his work, with partners ranging from Martial Solal to African balafon player Moussa Hema.
 
The Pifarély Quartet is completed by Antonin Rayon, who makes a first appearance on ECM here. Dominique enjoyed listening to Rayon in the Spring Roll band of flute player Sylvaine Hélary, and has since worked alongside him in Marc Ducret’s band. Antonin may be best known as a Hammond organist, but Pifarély puts the focus on his thoughtful and creative piano playing, always at the service of the ensemble sound.
 
Tracé provisoire was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in July 2015.