Reviews of the week

The new album After The Last Sky by Anouar Brahem with Anja Lechner, Django Bates and Dave Holland impresses UK and Italian reviewers

Graceful, nuanced pieces for oud, cello, piano and bass subtly address deep metaphysical questions. […] The album leads with a two-minute work called ‘Remembering Hind’, written in memory of a young victim of the war. Slow mournful cello leads into winding melodic piano lines, then in unison a balanced harmonic counterpoint. Next up the title track, a quicker tempo and a wise composition with Brahem’s oud leading, it’s earthly poetic tones delicately played. Piano and double bass join prior to cello taking centre stage, all designed to take the listener inward to some sort of state of reflection on the war. […] The collaborative nature of the quartet along with their political concerns, is a central focus to all the work. […] The sound is crisp and clear with a warm glow in the low frequencies.

Simon Duff, Morning Star

La musica di Brahem è sensibile e insieme rigorosa, grazie anche stavolta al contributo di musicisti di altissimo livello mondiale. Sono il contrabbassista Dave Holland, già al suo fianco in ‘Thimar’ del 1998 (il tunisino cita un celebre claim pubblicitario per definire la loro collaborazione: ‘il modo in cui suona Dave mi mette le ali’), il pianista Django Bates, anche lui, come Holland, tra i jazzisti inglesi che hanno elaborato un suono dalla flessuosa identità, confrontandosi con la declinazione scandinava, con i suggerimenti francesi e italiani e con la modernità americana, e la splendida violoncellista Anja Lechner, il cui ‘canto’ in bilico tra mille arcobaleni sonori è quasi leggenda. […] Il magnifico, a volte introspettivo altre nostalgico, a volte contemplativo altre vitalistico, universo sapientemente composito di poesia e cultura di Brahem vive un perenne equilibrio di spunti e languori, di discrezione e intensità, in un mondo cameristico eppure senza confini di una bellezza inquieta e totale, compreso tra due brani in sui il violoncello è protagonista.

Raffaello Carabini, Spettakolo

La scelta della Lechner si rivela vincente: è lei la protagonista assoluta del lavoro, anche se non sempre in primo piano; la voce struggente del suo strumento carica di pathos e emozione i temi, già di per sé prodighi di sensazioni. A lei sono affidati l’apertura e la chiusura dell’album: ‘Remembering Hind,’ in coppia col pianista, è il dolente ricordo di una delle giovani vittime, mentre in ‘Vague’ ai due si aggiunge il bassista nell’evocazione delle onde del mare. Il brano è uno dei più noti di Brahem, che lo aveva già inciso in altre occasioni, e la stessa violoncellista lo aveva eseguito con il pianista Couturier nel loro album Lontano. La Lechner è ancora in primo piano in ‘In the Shade of Your Eyes,’ con la sola compagnia dell’oud del leader, mentre tra i brani di gruppo ‘Dancing Under the Meteorites’ è quello più mosso, sostenuto dal basso di Holland.

Mario Calvitti, All about Jazz (Italy)

‘After the Last Sky’ è un album molto ricco sotto il profilo emotivo. Lo percorre un senso di profondo struggimento, un brivido che si ritrova nelle note tese e staccate dell’oud, nei ricami e bordoni di Anja Lechner, nel liquido pianismo di Bates, nel pulsare del basso di Holland (‘quel suo modo di suonare mi dà le ali’, si entusiasma Brahem). Una vaga foschia che è dolce e insieme malinconica avvolge brani come ‘After the Last Sky’, ‘In the Shade of Your Eyes’, ‘Never Forget’, con i toni pensosi e misurati che abbiamo imparato a conoscere da questo grande autore; arriva fino aVague, il sigillo dell’album, terza rilettura che Brahem fa del suo brano forse più famoso, dopo l’originale incisione di ‘Khomsa’ e la variazione che chiudeva ‘Le voyage de Sahar’. L’oud tace questa volta, per lasciare il posto a una nostalgica melodia disegnata da Anja Lechner sulle onde del pianoforte di Bates, ‘come acqua che lambisce una riva del Mediterraneo’.

Riccardo Bertoncelli, Musica Jazz

The new album Homage by Joe Lovano with the Marcin Wasilewski Trio is reviewed in a leading Belgian daily paper

Joe Lovano montre dans cet album l’apaisement que lui donnent son expérience et la spontanéité qui le pousse à toujours être libre dans sa musique.  […] c’est tellement parfait qu’on n’ose rien exiger. […] Tout est dans la subtilité, celle de Lovano, celle de Wasilewski, dont les melodies s’entrelacent entre sons graves et cristallins. […] des melodies semées de fragments et d’allusions, des impros bienvenues, des moments où on se plonge tellement dans ce jazz qu’on oublie tout le reste. Avec cet album, Joe Lovano rend homage à tous ceux qui l’ont inspiré, musiciens ou non. Merci à eux, merci à lui.

Jean-Claude Vantroyen, Le Soir

The new album Arcanum by Arve Henriksen, Trygve Seim, Anders Jormin and Markku Ounaskari garners acclaim from UK and German media

Frequent readers will probably have registered my admiration for the various musical offerings of saxophonist Trygve Seim and trumpeter Arve Henriksen, so are unlikely to be surprised by my enthusiasm for ‘Arcanum’, a newly released quartet album they made with bassist Anders Jormin and percussionist Markku Ounaskari. […] Stylistically, ‘Arcanum’ is quite diverse, with some tracks wholly improvised, others from compositions by Seim and Jormin, alongside a traditional hymn (‘Armon Lapset’) and a brief, fairly forthright take on Ornette’s ‘What Reason Could I Give?’, a song from ‘Science Fiction’, arguably Coleman’s finest album. Sometimes, it’s clearly ‘jazz’; sometimes, something more chamber-like, impressionist, experimental. But in the end such categories are meaningless. […] Some of the improvisations are, for all their concision, quite abstract, while other numbers feel more structured and traditional: Seim’s plaintive, hymnal ballad ‘Trofast’, for example, where the highly distinctive timbres of both the composer’s sax and Henriksen’s trumpet are at their most characteristically lyrical, with Jormin and Ounaskari underpinning their melodic invention with nimble, similarly expressive expertise. […] The sympathetic interplay between the four musicians is remarkable; I’ve found that their album grows with each hearing, and imagine it will continue to do so.

Geoff Andrew, Notes & Observations

Die – oft folkloristisch anmutenden – Melodien des Sopran- und Tenorsaxofonisten Trygve Seim und die etwas eher mit der unkonventionellen Intonation der Free-Ära korrespondierenden des Trompeters Arve Henriksen überlappen sich oft, gehen ineinander über, erklingen mal einfach gleichzeitig oder aber auch in loser Kommunikation. Der Kontrabassist Anders Jormin und der Schlagzeuger Markku Ounaskari bereichern dieses Zusammenspiel, indem sie auf die Bläser eingehen, ihre Improvisationsbögen unterstützen, sie abfedern, auf sie antworten. Ein faszinierendes Geflecht entsteht so, wobei die Spieldauer von eineinhalb bis nur selten mehr als vier Minuten pro Stück das Quartett zur Konzentration zwingt und durch die Vielfalt der sechzehn Klangbilder beständige Abwechslung garantiert.

Werner Stiefele, Rondo

A Belgian reaction to the album Renaissance by the Nicolas Masson quartet

Le charme opère donc toujours avec ce ‘Renaissance’, avec cette sobriété dans les compositions qui vont à l’essentiel sans recherché d’effets faciles, avec ces musiciens qui jouent dans un ton juste et dans le respect des autres, un réel esprit d’équipe.

Sergio Liberati, Jazz Mania

An Italian reaction to the album Winter Poems by Yuval Cohen 

Sebbene le otto composizioni siano tutte del titolare, che col suo soprano dal timbro nitido indica ai compagni d’avventura – tutti israeliani – la strada da percorrere, il giovane gruppo suona come un’entità unica e assai coesa. E anche dialoghi, dinamiche e scambi strumentali tra il leader e i partner sono paritari. Siamo di fronte a un jazz da camera di estrema eleganza, influenzato dalla formazione classica di Cohen e anche dal suo amore per la tradizione popolare ebraica. Musica di assoluta intensità e dal forte afflato spirituale. […] Un artista di cui sentiremo parlare presto.

Ivo Franchi, Musica Jazz

The vinyl-reissue of Bennie Maupin’s The Jewel in the Lotus within the Luminessence-series is welcomed by US and UK media

Of an era when groups like the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return To Forever elevated virtuosity into a competitive sport, ‘Jewel’ is a monument to the whole. Its pace is unhurried, the arrangements dense and complex, each note intentional. Tasteful electronics and languid pacing make early Weather Report and some of Miles’ more ethereal electric work easy reference points, but ‘Jewel’ stands alone in its humble lack of pretense. […] A true headphone journey and an aural balm for a world that’s spinning a bit too fast. Given Bennie Maupin’s gift for arriving at the perfect moment,  it’s no coincidence to see this LP reissued when it’s needed most.

L. Erwin, Aquarium Drunkard

Another overlooked 70s classic remastered from the original tapes and returned to vinyl, this time as part of ECM’s audiophile Luminessence strand. ‘The Jewel in the Lotus’ is a remarkable, Buddhist-inspired suite of original pieces composed by the saxophonist and flautist Bennie Maupin, well-known for his work with Miles Davis (from ‘Bitches Brew’ to ‘On the Corner’ and beyond) and Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi and Head Hunters groups. Despite these affiliations, the album conforms to no one’s idea of what a fusion album is supposed to sound like, abjuring funk or rock-styled grooves – and even conventional solos – in favour of impressionistic, superbly orchestrated and vividly atmospheric tone-poems. The overall effect is to conjure up a strange and occasionally rather frightening sound-world that moves easily from limpid ecstasy to banging Sturm und Drang. Another notable influence is the trumpeter Marion Brown’s unusual ECM recording from 1970, ‘Afternoon of a Georgia Faun’, on which Maupin played. […]  It’s all startlingly good, transcendently so in fact. Some pieces, such as the opening ‘Ensenado’, where Buster’s Williams’ pedal-figure bass is partnered by gentle percussion and pitter-pattering marimba before the entry of Maupin’s ethereal flute and sax harmonies, are simply out-there: all-time classics and as contemporary-sounding as almost anything else I can think of, from 1974 to now. […] What an achievement it continues to be. And what a golden age of adventurous jazz it was

Phil Johnson, UK Jazz News

German reviewers on the vinyl-reissue of Chick Corea’s Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 within the Luminessence series

Es ist eine Sammlung von Kompositionen Coreas, deren Gehalt in spielerischen, wie fließenden romantischen als auch abstrakten Figuren beinahe vollendet aufblüht. In einer bis heute unglaublich leichtfüßigen und doch zwingenden Eigenwilligkeit paart der Pianist kindhaft Naives neben ungewohnten Harmoniefolgen. Hier finden improvisierte Intimität, spürbare Spielfreude und kultivierte Spontanität zu einer berührenden Einheit. Der Pianist sprach in einem Interview von einer bestimmten Form des Swing, die seine Musik habe, wobei er den Fluss der musikalischen Bewegung meint. Vielleicht ließe sich das auch eher mit einem gewissen Puls übersetzen, der diesem Album durchgängig zu eigen ist. Auch ein Puls der Natürlichkeit und Frische, der stärker in der europäischen Klaviertradition verortet scheint, als in Westafrika oder New Orleans. Die letzten acht Stücke auf dem Album gehören der Suite ‘Where Are You Now? – A Suite of Eight Pictures’. Es sind mehr oder weniger kurze Klavier-Miniaturen. Diese kleine Form beherrscht Chick Corea außerordentlich. Hier kann er seine Ideen komprimiert ausloten, um nicht zu sagen sich diszipliniert, mit einer gewissen Distanz austoben. Ein zeitloses Album.

Jörg Konrad, Kultkomplott

Die erste Seite der ‘Improvisationen’ sind fünf Stücke, die eine elegante Feinheit und heitere Melancholie verströmen. Auch die brasilianichen Einflüsse des Pianisten schimmern im ‘Song for Sally’ durch. Die achtteilige Suite ‘Where are you now?’ ist dagegen von spontaner Improvisation geprägt. Für Chick Corea selbst waren die Aufnahmen wie ein Selbstgespräch, es ging ihm um Entscheidungen zwischen Freiheit und Limitierungen, um die Balance zwischen Improvisation und Komposition. Ein Suchen und eine Neugier, die man dieser zeitlosen Musik heute noch anhört.

York Schaefer, Jazzthetik