Reviews of the week

An early reaction to the upcoming album And I heard a voice by Vox Clamantis with works of Arvo Pärt

In this beautiful new recital we see hope for deliverance explicitly placed in the anticipation of Christ’s coming in the ‘Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen’; Simeon’s joy at the sight of the newborn Jesus and his mission in the ‘Nunc dimittis’; and new beginnings in the prayer sung at the rebuilt Greek Orthodox Church at Ground Zero in ‘O Holy Father Nicholas’. But there’s also Pärt’s implied challenge to us ‘to see everything in the light of the end’ as Kristina Kōrver puts in her excellent booklet notes. That’s present in Simeon’s vision of salvation of course, but reinforced in the text from the Book of Revelation in the title track ‘And I heard a voice’, appropriately chosen to conclude the programme. […] Vox Clamantis and their gifted director Jaan-Eik Tulve have provided a thoughtful and highly memorable tribute. Their sound has been atmospherically captured by ECM in Haapsalu Cathedral. I can’t think of how this 90th birthday present could be bettered.

Dominic Hartley, Music Web International

First reactions to the new limited vinyl box set At The Deer Head Inn – Complete Recordings by Keith Jarrett with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian

‘The Deer Head Inn’ recordings are special. The setting feels intimate. The trio is recorded close up and brightly. (Just for the sound, these newly issued LPs are worth acquiring, even if you, like me, own the CD versions.) The trio is practiced and audibly comfortable with each other. Their talents mesh. Bassist Peacock was a most flexible musician. Besides being part of Jarrett’s Standards Trio, he recorded widely with pianists like Bill Evans, Paul Bley, and Chick Corea. He was adept enough to switch hats and also record with avant-gardists like Albert Ayler, who would seem to be the antithesis of Bill Evans. Paul Motian is probably best known for his subtle playing with that same Bill Evans: he appears on, for instance, Evans’s iconic Portrait in Jazz (1959). […] Several of the Deer Head Inn pieces, besides “Basin Street Blues,” are connected with Miles Davis, including “Bye Bye Blackbird.” (Davis recorded “Bye Bye Blackbird” in 1957.) Jarrett begins “Blackbird” in a relaxed fashion, as if deciding what he is about to play. Eventually, he announces the familiar melody with emphatic single notes. He ends the opening chorus in similar fashion, and then relaxes into his improvisation. He’s a master at manipulating the tension of a performance, inventing lightly tripping lines that go outside the written harmonies. When the performance is going well, Jarrett involves his left hand in block chords. The pianist’s solos are a sequence of sprightly, unexpected ideas: at one point in “Blackbird,” drummer Motian (I believe) yells, ‘Go!’ […] Jarrett’s tribute to Thelonious Monk is a powerfully stated, uptempo ‘Straight, No Chaser.’ Immediately, via his ensuing solo, Jarrett moves far beyond Monk’s chords. He makes it sound effortless. Pat Metheny once told me, when Jarrett was already famous, that he thought the pianist was the most underrated figure in jazz. At 80, he can no longer perform, but his legacy is secure. ‘At the Deer Head Inn’ is a significant part of it.

Michael Ullman, Arts Fuse

Whenever you hear people comprising lists of ‘Essential Jazz Albums’, Jarrett’s ‘Köln Concert’ usually gets sighted. This four lp set has to be considered an companion piece, as Jarrett , like Frank Sinatra, determined simply by selection and performance, not only what a standard was, but how it was to be played.

George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly

Some records you pull out to impress people, others you keep for yourself. ‘At The Deer Head Inn: The Complete Recordings’ manages to be both: a shining showcase of one of jazz’s greatest pianists, and an intimate listening experience that feels almost private. This new 4LP box, bringing together the original ‘Deer Head Inn’ release and the long-delayed companion ‘The Old Country’, is nothing less than sensational. […] The box set itself is gorgeous: heavyweight vinyl, tip-on gatefolds, a sturdy slipcase, the kind of tactile experience that reminds us why vinyl endures. […] And if you’re in any doubt about how essential this music truly is, just listen to the trio’s incredible performance of ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’, and you’ll get exactly what I mean. If you want to understand what makes jazz timeless – its conversation, its daring, its humanity – this is the place.

Mike Gates, UK Vibe

La parution de ce superbe coffret vinyle inaugurerait-elle l’ère de la remise en valeur du fabuleux fond de catalogue d’ECM? On veut y croire. […] À la contrebasse, l’inamovible Gary Peacock faisait d’une certaine manière le lien entre toutes ces époques, et la musique se distinguait par une véritable fraîcheur d’inspiration et un swing étourdissant, rappelant que leur connaissance intime des grands standards de Broadway et des classiques de Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis ou Jaki Byard permettait à ces grands maîtres de converser au sommet d’une Olympe que bien peu de mortels peuvent atteindre.

Étienne Dorsay, Jazz Magazine (‘Choc’)

L’un des chefs d’œuvres de sa discographie […] Un objet de culte.

Louis Michaud, Jazz News

The album El Viejo Caminante by Dino Saluzzi with Jacob Young and José Maria Saluzzi enchants reviewers in the US and France

It can be argued that many prefer nonagenarian Argentinian bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi’s ensemble recordings to his solo work. Of course, there’s an equally large group that prefers the solo material. But what if he captured both sensibilities on a single album? ‘El Viejo Caminante’ (‘The Old Wanderer’) accomplishes exactly that. It’s a gently evocative set of chamber jazz, folk, tango-infused memory sketches and restrained, melodic improvisation. Accompanied by Norwegian guitarist Jacob Young and classical guitarist son José Maria Saluzzi, Dino’s sonorous bandoneon resonates in revisiting some early works, original trio compositions, two pop standards, and a Karin Krog cover. They key to this unsual chamber collective is that both guitarists understand exactly how to accompany Saluzzi, and when to get out of his way. […] Saluzzi does an excellent job of handling piano and bandoneon roles, as his accompanists create an intimate palette for his tonal explorations. The two standards, ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ and ‘My One and Only Love,’ are delivered with great sensitivity and nearly instinctual harmonic interplay; Young and José offer lush ballast for the bandoneon that articulates the lyric melodies with restraint, grace, and taste. The title track is performed solo; it’s a meditative reverie based on a folk song. […] Every moment on ‘El Viejo Caminante’ offers illumination, innovation, and restraint, and as a result, it’s nearly magical and stands with Saluzzi’s very best work.

Thom Jurek, All Music

This is an intimate album, just Dino and two guitarists, his son José Maria Saluzzi on classical guitar and Norwegian Jacob Young on an electric Telecaster and acoustic guitars. It’s a generous program of 14 songs in which the master and his instrument explore a variety of moods. Dino is said to view the album as a collection of songs from a variety of eras and genres including tango, Argentinean folk music and jazz, and the jazz element is particularly strong this time […] ‘El Viejo Caminante’ is a quiet joy from first note to last, soothing and engaging in equal measures.

Gary Whitehouse, Greenman Review

Ensemble, ils tissent une musique à la fois simple et profonde, où l’Argentine natale de Saluzzi se mêle naturellement aux échos du jazz, des musiques populaires et des ballades les plus épurées comme sait les produire le label ECM. Tout ici respire la modestie, la sincérité, l’amour – pour les racines, pour la famille, pour la musique. […] On en sort le cœur léger…et les larmes aux yeux.

Hicham El Moueffak, Jazz Magazine

The freshly released album Libro Primo by Rolf Lislevand is welcomed by reviewers in the US and Germany

For his new album ‘Libro Primo’, the Norwegian lutenist recorded music by Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger and other Italian composers from the early-1600s movement known as the Camerata fiorentina. Most works come from the composers’ first printed books, hence the album’s title. The set also includes a piece of Lislevand’s own composition. Lislevand makes this ancient music sound vital through a mature, distinctive, and warmly expressive sensibility, even as he explicates these old ‘texts’ through a prism of meticulous technique. As an early-music aficionado I hear lutes and theorbos in concert fairly often, but hearing one of these larger lutes in a pristine studio recording is a rare pleasure. […] In Lislevand’s hands the opening track, Kapsberger’s ‘Toccata terza,’ sounds almost like a Spanish guitar piece. Crossing time even further, he finds parallels – very easy to hear – between the ‘Folias’ and Diego Ortiz’s ‘Recerdada quinta’ from the 16th century, one of two Ortiz pieces included for comparison. Full of rich expressivity and gleaming virtuosity, ‘Libro Primo’ from Rolf Lislevand is a beautiful listen. It’s also a valuable contribution to our understanding of music from a period that classical music presenters often overlook.

Jon Sobel, Blog Critics

Im Mittelpunkt von ‘Libro Primo’ stehen vor allem ausgewählte Toccaten des Star-Lautenisten Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger. Hinzu kommen Tanzsätze wie eine ‘Corrente’ von Bernardo Gianoncelli sowie – aus dem 16. Jahrhundert – zwei ‘Recercadas’ des Spaniers Diego Ortiz. Auf exquisiten, volltönig-resonanzreichen Nachbauten einer Erzlaute sowie eines Chitarrone (beide stammen aus der Werkstatt von Hendrik Hasenfuss) erweist sich Lislevand einmal mehr als einfühlsamer Wanderer durch diese Klangwelten. Dabei fängt er mit seiner unendlichen Anschlagspalette nicht nur die Stimmungen mit bewundernswerter Leichtigkeit ein. Zugleich webt er in das barocke Geflecht hier und da raffiniert Motive eben aus dem Jazz ein. Und in seiner ‘Passacaglia al modo mio’ verarbeitet Lislevand gar ganz subtil und gekonnt Themen von Bach, Beethoven und dem Jazzpianisten Keith Jarrett.

Guido Fischer, Rondo

UK and Belgian reactions to the album Arcanum by Arve Henriksen, Trygve Seim, Anders Jormin and Markku Ounaskari

It’s a commendable outing for this group of highly respected musicians in a set that mixes composition and improvisation with just enough loose-limbed, Art-Ensemble of-Chicagoish waywardness to playfully tinker with the usual refined ECM house style. The music moves easily and naturally between reflective abstraction and free jazz scampering, with Henriksen’s trumpet often to the fore in a good way.

Gary Booth, BBC Music Magazine

Un quartet formidable qui développe, dans ce premier album, ‘Arcanum’, une musique tantôt tendre, tantôt dramatique, tantôt lyrique en seize étoiles de courts morceaux, composés par l’un ou l’autre member du groupe ou improvises à quatre et, souvent, on ne fait pas la difference. […] on espère que cet album ne sera pas qu’un chant unique.

Jean-Claude Vantroyen, Le Soir

The album Æris with works by Erkki-Sven Tüür is reviewed in a UK music magazine

Its title evoking imagery of breathing and thus creation, the Tenth Symphony (2021) unfolds as four continuous movements between them revisiting this genre’s Classical archetype from a vantage point distinctly of the present. The first of these draws from its salient ideas a cumulative development, out of which the horn quartet emerges as aspiring protagonist. […] The works on either side anticipate the several ways. In the case of ‘Phantasma’ (2018), various totemic gestures are gradually elaborated and intensified (evidently against a backdrop of Beethoven’s ‘Coriolan’ overture) […] Conversely ‘De Profundis’ (2013) expounds its defining  themes at strategic junctures – as if embodying the individual, collective then universal  that increasingly narrow before finally overcoming  any divide between  aspiration and attainment that is crucial to the Western tradition within which Tüür  himself now consciously operates. The Estonian National Symphony cannot be faulted under Olari Elts and German Hornsound are resplendent in ‘Æeris’, which it would be instructive to hear within the context of Schumann’s ‘Konzertstück’.

Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone

A UK reviewer reminds us of the album Alina by Arvo Pärt at the jubilee of its recording

So, thirty years on (although not released until 1999), how does ‘Alina’ stand the test of time and validate it place in the composer’s distinctive discography for the label? The simple answer is very well. Taking a somewhat unique stance in featuring more than one version of two compositions arranged for duo and solo performances the music remains as fresh and gently intoxicating as it did upon its release. The two compositions that are played are ‘Für Alina’ that was composed in 1976 and heard here as recitals for solo piano, and from 1978 ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ for duo with piano and violin or cello and composed in Pärt’s tintinnabuli style. […] Each of the three performances of ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ have a different dynamic, although the written parts are the same throughout for both violin and cello, the weight and colour of the notes give each a new focus, and the approach of the two pianists differs with Alexander Malter placing greater emphasis on the contrast between lower and higher registers of the piano. The haunting melody is given added weight by the use of long notes and the performers use of bow on strings that make the music resonate so clearly. The solo piano recitals of ‘Für Alina’ that separate the three readings of ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ are both performed by pianist Alexander Malter in two masterful interpretations that despite the minimalistic material he has to work with are extraordinarily varied. With no fixed metre or tempo, the composed score is less than two minutes in duration, but in the hands of Malter the music is slowly developed through repetition and variation to produce more than twenty minutes of compelling music.

Nick Lea, Jazz Views