25.10.2024 | Reviews of the week

Reviews of the week

The upcoming live album The Old Country by Keith Jarrett with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian is ‘Jazz album of the Month’ in a leading UK daily

 

Like its ‘Deer Head’ predecessor, this set is song-based jazz-imagining at its best. […] the leader’s audibly evident delight in the place and the people, make these recordings special.

John Fordham, The Guardian (‘Jazz album of the month’)

A German daily paper on Anja Lechner’s new cello solo recording with works by Bach, Hume and Abel

 

Die 1961 in Kassel geborene und in München lebende Cellistin hat viel Zeit auf den verschiedenen Schauplätzen des musikalischen Lebens verbracht. Sie hat improvisiert, hat mit dem Bandoneon-Virtuosen Dino Saluzzi duettiert, hat Neues uraufgeführt (darunter Kompositionen von Arvo Pärt) und ihre Fühler überhaupt in alle klanglichen und stilistischen Richtungen ausgestreckt. Davon profitiert ihre neue CD beim Label ECM Records beträchtlich. Lechner betrachtet das Cello nämlich aus der Perspektive seines Vorgängerinstruments, der Gambe – und sie integriert in ihre Deutung zweier Bach-Suiten (G-Dur und d-Moll) auch Kompositionen von Tobias Hume und Carl Friedrich Abel. Anja Lechner fuchtelt nun aber nicht herum, als wolle sie den Hume-Abel-Import als große und sonore Nummer verkaufen. Anderseits reduziert sie ihr Cello nicht auf eine näselnde Gamben-Imitation. Vielmehr spielt sie diskret, vollendet kammermusikalisch, fast sogar mit Understatement – und solcher Tiefsinn, der eher tastet als sägt, entdeckt erst recht die verborgenen Linien, die alle drei Musiker aus jenen fernen Zeiten untereinander verbinden. Ihren Bach spielt sie tatsächlich völlig entspannt, mit weltumspannendem Atem; die Sarabande aus der G-Dur-Suite ist ein expressiver Gesang ohne Schluchzer. Ihr Cello gibt zu erkennen, dass es aus einem Baum gefertigt wurde, der Stamm, Wurzel und feine Äste besaß. Und – wenn es in die Höhe geht – eine berückende Krone.

Wolfram Goertz, Rheinische Post

 

The album Ashes To Gold by the Avishai Cohen Quartet is discussed in US, UK and German media

 

Avishai Cohen’s latest ECM release, ‘Ashes to Gold’, offers music that reflects on the turbulence of our times. Cohen, known for his soaring trumpet lines and evocative compositions, delivers a five-part suite that encapsulates emotions ranging from rage and despair to faint glimmers of hope. Written under the duress of wartime in his homeland, the album chronicles the political and personal crises Cohen faced as well as his unyielding determination to find beauty amid chaos. […] ‘Ashes to Gold’ represents Cohen’s most unique album to date. Unlike his previous ECM efforts, where improvisation played a central role, this time, Cohen labored over every note and rhythmic pulse. The result is an album shaped by the raw emotions of war but also hopeful—a reminder that, like kintsugi, beauty can emerge from brokenness. Cohen gives voice to the unspeakable through his music, offering a musical meditation that transcends the boundaries of jazz, classical, and cultural divides.

Stamish Malcuss, Jazz Sensibilities

 

In his 1951 book ‘The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination’, poet Wallace Stevens argues that the creative imagination is necessary because it pushes back against the pressures of reality. Art changes when those pressures change. That sentiment could be an apt commentary on Tel Aviv trumpet player Avishai Cohen’s new quartet record ‘Ashes to Gold’, which contains a five-part eponymous suite that was composed under extraordinary pressures. One can almost feel the artist pushing back against the war that raged around him. [….] To this listener, the most intriguing composition on the album is Cohen’s version of the slow movement from Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major. Cohen says that he listened to the Martha Argerich recording obsessively while he was formulating this project. I’d recommend listeners do the same. [….] Ravel’s ‘Adagio assai’ opens with a soberly lyrical statement of the theme by the solo piano at a slow tempo. The subtlety of Argerich’s dynamics highlights the increasing, though restrained, intensity of the solo. The piano makes way for a flute solo and then the rest of the orchestra. It is Ravel’s spare use of the orchestra — and the relative passivity of the piano part — that makes this ‘Adagio assai’ readily available for Cohen’s musings. Like his model, he opens his solo with a pleasingly broad, rich tone and with minimal vibrato. The trumpeter is soon joined by his bassist. When the piano and drums enter, it’s like a sunburst. The solemn intensity of the opening gives way to something we might call hopeful. The agitated passages return but, by the end, peace reigns. For Cohen, the hope he found in those tragic days came from within — he imposed it on his world.

Michael Ullman, Arts Fuse

 

Dramatische Wechsel wie im Film prägen die fünfsätzige Suite ‘Ashes To Gold’, ungewöhnlich eingeleitet durch Avishai Cohen an der Querflöte. Was mit ‘Into The Silence’ 2015 begann und sich mit ‘Cross My Palm With Silver’ weiterschrieb, bekommt hier eine unverhoffte Fortsetzung. […] Nichts wirkt überzeichnet, effekthascherisch. ‘Ashes To Gold’ hat eine genau durchdachte Dramaturgie. […] Dann noch das ‘Adagio assai’ aus Ravels Klavierkonzert in G-Dur, ein Hit ihrer Konzerte, hier erstmals auf Platte. Zuerst ‘singt’ die Trompete allein, dann mit Bass, nach zweieinhalb Minuten folgt der Rest des Quartetts. In ‘The Seventh’ kristallisiert sich  in einem langen hohen Ton noch einmal das besondere dieser Klangalchemie.

Karl Lippegaus, Fono Forum

The album Za Górami by Alice Zawadzki, Fred Thomas and Misha Mullov-Abbado fascinates UK and Austrian reviewers

 

Five traditional Ladino songs are included in ‘Za Górami’, a new album by Alice Zawadski, Fred Thomas and Misha Mullov-Abbado, providing a kind of structure for the 11-track sequence featuring Zawadski’s voice, violin and viola, Mullov-Abbado’s double bass and Thomas’s piano, drums and vielle (a fiddle favoured by French troubadours between the 11th and 13th centuries). The remainder of the programme consists of songs taken from a variety of sources. […] Recorded in Lugano and produced by Manfred Eicher, the music could be said to be a perfect manifesto for the ECM philosophy: the creation of a frontierless chamber music based on the instincts and practices of jazz but entirely porous in its acceptance of other cultures and idioms. […] If, as it happens, nothing here sounds much like jazz, it couldn’t exist without jazz, either. The clarity and subtle shadings of Zawadzki’s soprano, the handsomely shaped bass sound and calm phrasing of Mullov-Abbado, and Thomas’s reflective piano and subtle percussion work together to create a pan-national music in which elegance, economy and ardour are held in perfect balance. In its quiet way, this is one of the year’s outstanding albums.

Richard Williams, The Blue Moment

 

Getragen wird das Ganze von der klaren, vibratolos-schlank agierenden Stimme von Zawadzki, um die herum behutsam zeitlose Klangräume modelliert werden. Thomas hat auch James Joyce’ Gedicht ‘Gentle Lady’ vertont, hält sich stilistisch aber im tonalen, traditionellen Bereich auf – wie die ganze subtile Einspielung.

Liubiša Tošić, Der Standard

Anna Gourari’s recording of works by Hindemith and Schnittke with the OSI Lugano directed by Markus Poschner is reviewed in a French music magazine

 

Palette dynamique jouant d’infinies gradations, ètagement soigné des plans sonores: Anna Gourari livre, sur un Steinway admirablement capté, d’impressionnantes lectures de deux œuvres concertantes en forme de variations.

Marc Lesage, Diapason

An Italian reviewer on the album Imaginary Cycle by Florian Weber

 

La partecipazione di momenti musicali del nostro tempo, l’emergere di una contemporaneità che sembra farsi strada in modo spontaneo all’interno di una collaudata polifonia d’ispirazione antica e spesso liturgica, orientano ‘Imaginary Cycle’ verso un’opera fuori schema, inclassificabile secondo le usuali griglie interpretative. La capacità di scrittura, notevole per poter strutturare tali polifonie, può mescolarsi all’improvvisazione con passo morbido ed elegante. Intere sezioni di fiati sembrano a volte deviare verso territori inattesi, in un continuo fluire che si mantiene tuttavia lontano da vacui sperimentalismi. […] Alla fine di questo album resta un nodo di sentimenti contrastanti, dettati dalle numerose ibridazioni tra classico e moderno. Sicuramente, come avevo accennato all’inizio della recensione, questo ‘Imaginary Cycle’ è un lavoro ambizioso. Il cerchio si disegna tra la polifonia seicentesca e parte della musica cameristica contemporanea e non è certo un percorso facile, anche se dubito che Weber fosse intenzionato a chiudere questa circonferenza. Già la scelta della strumentazione è coraggiosa e forse, come lo stesso Autore riferisce, l’influenza di Garbarek con il suo ‘Officium’ del1994 è avvertita almeno sostanzialmente, se pur non formalmente. Che siano queste le prime declinazioni di una nuova musica europea di là da venire?

Riccardo Talamazzi, Offtopic Magazine

The album Seeing by the Tord Gustavsen Trio is reviewed in UK, German and Italian media

 

Joined by long-time colleague, the brilliantly understated drummer Jarle Vespestad and the wonderfully woody tone of bassist Steinar Raknes, Gustavsen allows drums and bowed bass to usher in the opening ‘Jesus Gjør Meg Stille’. A simple initial melody broadens out into somewhere between a Middle Eastern meditation and a Scottish folk song with Gustavsen improvising expressively. The mood overall is devotional as the leader incorporates ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ as well as developing a soundcheck jam, ‘Seattle Song’, over Raknes’ reaching, octave-spanning double-bass phrase into a finale that has the crucial ingredient of calling the listener back.

Rob Adams, The List

 

In die zart getupften, nur selten  mit markantem Anschlag akzentuierten Pianolinien webt sich ebenso diskret wie effektvoll der gelegentlich auch gestrichene Bass von Steinar Raknes in schöner Kontrapunktik. Dazu pulst Jarle Vespestad mit zurückhaltender Eleganz fein ausschwingende Muster auf hell prasselnden Cymbals, die er mit der sanft raschenden Snare kontrastiert. Ganz organisch, man ist versucht zu sagen: harmonisch ergeben sich so pastellig kolorierte Klangbilder, deren Innerlichkeit eine meditative Sogwirkung entfaltet, in der man tiefenentspannt versinkt. Wer glaubt, die uralte Piano-Bass-Schlagzeug-Geschichte sei längst auserzählt, der wird vom Tord Gustavsen Trio wunderbar delikat eines Besseren belehrt – siehe, nein höre ‘Seeing’.

Sven Thielmann, Fono Forum

 

Gustavsen mostra di possedere una mano assai felice pure come autore: ‘The Old Church’ e ‘Seeing’ sono ballads ammalianti, ideali per apprezzare la coesione del gruppo, che suona davvero in the groove. Il tocco pianistico delicato e personale, i rimandi al gospel e il senso profondo di spiritualità che la sua musica trasmette fanno di lui un valore sicuro del jazz di oggi. Non solo di quello scandinavo ma di quello europeo in generale.

Ivo Franchi, Musica Jazz

 

lnizio col maestoso traditional norvegese ‘Jesus, Gjør Meg Stille’, un inno di composta solennità, trasfigurato da nervosi fremiti della ritmica a increspare il limpido dettato del pianoforte del leader. Un apripista che dà il segno a tulto il disco, costruito su melodie piene con riferimenti al sacro scavate in profondità, echi di blues e di gospel sempre in punta di dita. E il risultato è un appartato, intenso splendore.

Guido Festinese, Il Manifesto

A UK reaction to the album Our Time by Trygve Seim and Frode Haltli

 

Seim, again on soprano and tenor saxes, has one of the most distinctive and immediately recognisable sounds in jazz today – full, smooth, crystalline, now breathily sensuous, now powerfully keening – while Haltli, a true virtuoso equally at home in contemporary classical and experimental music as he is with jazz, folk and more popular forms, seems to be able to produce whatever sound he wants out of the accordion. The instrument is famously versatile, but Haltli constantly manages to surprise and delight; Seim too makes the most of whichever sax he is playing, so that ‘Our Time’, like ‘Yeraz’, is considerably richer – in terms of tone, timbre, texture, dynamics and colour – than many might expect from an album of duets for sax and accordion. It’s remarkably rich in other ways, too. For one thing, it embraces a wide range of styles and influences. The opening track – ‘Du, mi tid’ (in English, ‘You, my time’) is a lovely, stately Haltli composition which already appeared on his album ‘Avant Folk – Triptyk’. ‘Fanfare’ is a simple Seim melody which allows for sufficiently ample embellishment to turn up twice in pleasingly different versions. The title of ‘Arabian Tango’ hints at its intriguing mixed origins (let’s not forget that the Finns claim that dance form, often deemed Argentinian, as their own). There is a Ukrainian lullaby, a North Indian folk song, and a brief piece by Stravinsky. What’s more, four of these pieces are preceded by others explicitly labelled as improvisations which, as it were, provide food for thought when the compositions begin. Then again, such is the musical invention at work during the exploration of the composed pieces that it’s actually quite hard, sometimes, to tell where the improvisation starts and stops. Likewise, Haltli and Seim display such mutual musical empathy that their very different instruments occasionally appear even to merge and become one. […] Such beauty will surely make this one of my albums of the year.

Geoff Andrew, Notes & Observations

A Canadian reaction to the album Transylvanian Dance by Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri

 

Recorded live as part of the Retracing Bartók project that took place in Timișoara, Romania, the eight songs run the gamut of traditional folk ballads to the lively title track with the two musicians improvising around the original scores. The recording echoes across the ages with its moving and emotional material and spectacular performance.

Stuart Derdeyn, Vancouver Sun

An Italian magazine on the new album Unfolding by Louis Sclavis and Benjamin Moussay

 

Un jazz da camera essenziale, rarefatto, di squisita fattura. E questo grazie alla profonda complicità dei protagonisti, ben rodata dal feeling che li accomuna e anche dalle esibizioni live.

Ivo Franchi, Musica Jazz