Reviews of the week

The new album Under The Surface by the Julia Hülsmann Quartet receives acclaim in the UK and Germany

The work of the German pianist Julia Hülsmann seems to mark the point at which cool jazz freezes. Imagine Bill Evans at his most introspective, then filter it through the intellectual austerity of Shostakovitch. But like ice, it is only on the surface. Peer underneath and you will find lots of surprises. This album has her quartet, plus a trumpeter on five tracks, exploring so many avenues you can’t predict where they will end up. ‘Bubbles’, penned by the band’s drummer, Heinrich Köbberling, takes us on one such journey. It starts with the tenor saxophone and trumpet picking out a melody that sounds like Monk’s ‘Misterioso’ in slow motion. Then the trumpeter Hildegunn Oiseth switches to goat horn and makes like Morricone on a mountaintop. Just when your brow is thoroughly furrowed, the horns entwine over a genial funk groove. See? Surprising. Hülsmann’s solos here give the lie to those who say she lacks soul. On the quivering Latin tune ‘Nevergreen’ she serves a cosy concoction of legato bebop phrases and bluesy block chords. On the swinging ‘Milkweed Monarch’ she is postboppish in an early Herbie Hancock mode. And on ‘Anti Fragile’ she even throws a bit of a wobbly as she and the tenor saxophonist Uli Kempendorff attack a cranky funk tune. But coolly, of course.

Chris Pearson, The Times

The decision to have Øiseth play on only half of the ten tracks that make up this wonderful album may be seen as erring on the side of caution but nothing could be further from the truth as Hildegunn integrates herself into the music with ease. The quartet have no trouble is making room for the new voice, and it is a credit to Hülsmann’s vision as to how quickly the music gels. The other aspect of the music heard here that impresses greatly is the rapport between Kempendorff and Øiseth has quickly evolved to the point that some of the music’s highlights spring from the interplay between the two. Just listen to how the pair interact on Köbberling’s beautiful ballad ‘May Song’, and with even greater depth and understanding on ‘Bubbles’ that features Hildegunn on trumpet in unison with tenor on the opening theme and the delicately blown goat horn. As the tempo steadies with a more implicitly stated pulse the music ebbs and flows in a composition that is pure melody. […] The pianist is also heard to stunningly beautiful effect in the lovely duet with Hildegunn, ‘The Earth Below’ which is all too brief and a quiet triumph.

Nick Lea, Jazz Views

Das ist die dritte Platte miteinander, als Quartett. Kempendorff fügt sich ein. Er stützt diese music, die ohne großen Vigor auskommt, aber nie zu lahm oder banal ausfällt, und betont eindringlich ihre Gesprächsqualitäten. Wollte man es hochhängen, allemal in einer Zeit, wo viele eine Diskussionskultur vermissen: In einem Gespräch, wo Argumente ohne die Stimme zu erheben vorgetragen werden, ist sanfte zwar, aber doch klar artikulierte und spannungsgeladene Meinung willkommen. Auf fünf Stücken kommt die Norwegerin Hildegunn Øiseth hinzu […] Die Stücke schrieb vor allem Hülsmann, je zwei Muellbauer und Köbberling. Besonders schön, dass sie viele Male kurz nach Kulmination wie verlöschen. Als verweigere man Lösungen. Als traue man Definitivem nicht die Bohne.

Adam Olschewski, Jazzpodium

The live album The Old Country by Keith Jarrett with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian is praised by US reviewers

All the titles on this release are standards albeit some are more familiar than others, it’s not hard to hear why the set opens with Cole Porter’s ‘Everything I Love’; the playing is simply inspired in its verve and the musicians are clearly having a whale of a time. Not least Jarrett who soon lets rip with brilliant improvisation that is full of joy. The energy and excitement are infectious and you can’t help but be carried away. […] ‘The Old Country – More from the Deer Head Inn’ is a very fine performance that has been superbly captured and sounds remarkably fresh considering it is vintage,  Jarrett is clearly  in his element and sharing the love with both his bandmates and the small audience. It’s not hard to hear why the venue was so full and that people were standing outside the building just to get an aural glimpse of greatness in action.

Jason Kennedy, Hifi +

In an intimate setting, recorded to two-track DAT with simple miking and almost no reverb, the sound is quite different from that of Jarrett’s other ECM recordings, and every track here is as memorably as those selected for the first album.

Steve Harris, Hifi News

Ashes To Gold by the Avishai Cohen Quartet is reviewed in a Swiss weekly

Natürlich kommt uns bei einem israelischen Künstler wie dem Trompeter Avishai Cohen, der bekennt, ihm habe es nach dem 7. Oktober 2023 die Sprache, also seine Musik, verschlagen – klar kommt uns beim jüngsten Album eines in Tel Aviv Geborenen die aktuelle Situation im Nahen Osten in den Sinn. Melancholisch verschattet, gelegentlich nicht ohne Pathos, ist seine Musik dennoch mehr, jedenfalls auch etwas anderes als ein Requiem auf die Zeitgeschichte. […] Der Titel von Suite und Album, ‘Ashes To Gold’, bezieht sich auf eher Entferntes: die japanische Tradition des Kintsugi, eine alte Kunst, zerbrochene Keramikstücke zu reparieren und die Bruchstellen durch Goldlack sichtbar zu machen. Eine Kunst also, Fragmente zu einem neuen alten Ganzen zusammenzusetzen – ein grosses Bild für den ‘Jazz’, wie Cohen ihn in seinem expressiven, tiefgründigen Opus versteht. […] Die Kunst von Cohen ist Arbeit am Klang. Einem strahlend vibratolosen Trompetenklang, einem ‘Herzausreisser’-Klang (Boris Vian): fliegend über wilden Arpeggios, innig zu sparsamen Lyrismen von Pianist Avishai. Nach fünf Piecen der Suite folgt eine spannende Auseinandersetzung mit dem Adagio aus Ravels Pianokonzert in G-Dur. Und zum Abschluss, nach so viel Hochprozentigem, eine einfache Melodie von Cohens Tochter Amalia. Eine Hommage an die nächste Generation. Eine kleine Ode an die Hoffnung.

Peter Rüedi, Weltwoche

The album Spindrift by Benjamin Lackner with Mathias Eick, Mark Turner, Linda My Han Oh and Matthieu Chazarenc is reviewed in the UK, Germany and Italy

This is an excellent and empathetic band, with musicianship and improvising of a very high order. The mournful ‘Murnau’ is the standout track, with beautifully keening open horn from Eick.

Andy Hamilton, Jazz Journal

Wie sich Eick und Turner im längsten Stück ‘Mosquito Flats’ in einem Frage-und-Antwort-Spiel die motivischen Bälle zuwerfen, in anderen Kompositionen sich ihre Linien umspielen und kontrapunktieren, ist von großem klanglichen Reiz und führt diese insgesamt kontemplativ-entspannte Session auch immer wieder zu  intensiveren Momenten. Bassistin Linda May Han Oh ist zuverlässig aufmerksam wie immer, und Schlagzeuger Matthieu Chazarenc, der auch das einzige nicht von Lackner stammende Stück  beigesteuert hat,  versteht sich mehr als kreativ kolorierender Mitgestalter den als taktgebender Antreiber. Schönes Album, das von den atmosphärischen Kompositionen des Leaders und der Chemie eines besonderen Bläsergespanns lebt.

Reinhold Unger, Jazzpodium

Die wundervollen Stimmungsbilder, die der deutsch-amerikanische Pianist in Stücken wie ‘Mosquito Flats’ und ‘Anacapa’ in eine geheimnisvolle musikalische Parallelwelt transferiert, können nur von Musikern weitergeführt werden, die wie Mathias Eick (trp) und Mark Turner (sax) die ästhetische Auffassung des Leaders teilen. Ihre epischen Improvisationen werden von der Bassistin Linda May Han Oh sensibel zu einer harmonischen Einheit zusammengefügt.

Gerd Filtgen, Stereo

Back in October 2022, German-American pianist Benjamin Lackner released his debut for the ECM label called ‘Last Decade’. It immediately summed up the typical ECM sound, if something like this exists after all. Lots of space, clarity, intimacy, and of course highest production values. Trumpeter Mathias Eick was on that particular record and he is there again on the new album ‘Spindrift# which just came out last week. Mathias works in tandem with saxophonist Mark Turner this time around. And it is not really a leader-oriented piano album, but rather, trumpet and sax are set center stage most of the time and the whole set is clearly more like a group effort. But the spaciousness is there from the start, restraint where you don’t expect it, like on the opening title track and the follow-up ‘Mosquito Flats’. On the latter, there is a longer piano stretch where you can actually hear Benjamin in a somewhat insouciant manner. But that particular mood is more of an exception here. The atmosphere gets darker on ‘More Mesa’, with sombre playing by bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Matthieu Chazarenc both enhancing the leader’s melancholic figurations. And that’s the beauty of this record: even though it seems that most of the pieces here belong to an elegiac or plaintive style, there is always this sense of awakening, of departure.

Matthias Kirsch, Gina Loves Jazz

In ‘Spindrift’ l’atmosfera sonora lambisce le dimensioni dell’onirismo, in una sorta di territorio intermedio che sembra rimandare giocoforza all’evocazione sollecitata dal titolo dell’album, a quelle schiume marine, cioè, sospese tra aria e acqua. I paesaggi così creati si tratteggiano per le numerose sfumature e non mostrano alcuna affinità verso facili costrutti melodici, mantenendo una quasi aristocratica austerità nel suggerire all’ascoltatore una rilassata attenzione alle numerose, delicate variazioni armoniche di cui l’album è particolarmente ricco. I temi strumentali così sviluppati mantengono un passo sospeso e fluttuante, mentre la componente ritmica, più che scandire il tempo, sembra amalgamarsi pienamente con i percorsi melodici quasi per rendere più efficaci le sfocate venature delle loro nuances.

Riccardo Talamazzi, Offtopic Magazine

The album Preludes and Songs by Francois Couturier and Dominique Pifarély enchants US and German reviewers

Modern sonatas are created by violinist Dominique Pifarely and pianist Francois Couturier on this album of originals and covers. The two take turns at leading, other times joining together. The two create spacious dots and dashes during ‚ ‚Lee Surcroit I‘ , get dramatic on ‚II‘ and ominous for ‚III‘ while going elliptical on a pretty “I Loves You Porgy”. Cuturier’s modern classical touch is featured on “Song For Harrison/Solitude” with Pifarely in a Sibelius mood on the Eastern European read of “A Nightingale Sang In Berkley”. Cool parlor.

George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly

Obwohl sie fast immer nur eigene Kompositionen spielten, wählten sie für das neue Album vier Standards: es sind Songs, die durch Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald und viele andere berühmt wurden. Aber sie werden hier mit eigenen Stücken quasi so ‘verhüllt’, dass dadurch ‘neue Originale’ entstehen. Wie aus dem Nebel der Zeiten tauchen die vertrauten Melodien auf, wie Gesichter hinter einer Milchglasscheibe. […] Die Kombination aus Klavier und Violine ist in der klassischen Sonaten-Tradition seit der Romantik weit verbreitet, im Jazz aber höchst selten. In Duo- und Solo-Passagen schöpfen Couturier & Pifarély ihr Können aus. Das vermeintlich Vertraute in neuem Licht erscheinen lassen. In spontaner Interaktion verborgene Verwandtschaften offenlegen. Aus langer Erfahrung schöpfen, die eigene Kreativität immer neu stimulieren, mit einem forschenden Geist – all das mündet bei Dominique Pifarély und François Couturier in abenteuerliche Hörerlebnisse.

Karl Lippegaus, Deutschlandfunk

Als der demnächst 75-jährige Pianist im 2023 in Neumarkter Historischen Reitstadel eintraf, um erneut mit Geiger Dominique Pifarély aufzunehmen, führten beide einen Stapel Partituren im Gepäck. Und doch bleiben Freiräume, aufgetan in einer verwinkelt-verschatteten Improvisation über George Gershwins ‘I Loves You Porgy’. Aufgetan auch, wenn die beiden Franzosen ihren ‘Song for Harrison’ in hörenswert tiefsinniger Manier in Ellingtons ‘Solitude’ kipppen lassen. Couturier und Pifarély wechseln zwischen verschiedenen Graden von Schwermut, Nachdenklichkeit überwiegt.

Wolfgang Gratzer, Jazzpodium

A US reaction to Taking Turns by Jakob Bro with Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Thomas Morgan and Andrew Cyrille

‘Taking Turns’ was certainly worth the wait. Any opportunity to hear unreleased music by royalty such as Konitz is a real treat. At 86 during the sessions (he passed away from COVID 19-related complications in 2020), the saxophonist absolutely shines. His alto playing on tracks such as the opener ‘Black Is All Colors at Once’ and ‘Pearl River’, and a rare turn on soprano on ‘Haiti’, are as youthful and vibrant  as anything he recorded during his long and storied career. Guitar icon Bill Frisell, another luminary with a history with Bro, is also prominently featured. The interplay between the two guitarists on the opening track, as well  as the exquisite ‘Aarhus’, when combined with Konitz’ subtle alto tones, offers a sweeping yet delicate synchronization: quiet certainly, but never gloomy. […] There isn’t a whole lot of rhythm on ‘Taking Turns’, which allows drummer Andrew Cyrille the freedom to create his own percussion accents to complement the group’s melodies. Like Moran’s piano playing, Cyrille’s free drumming isn’t necessarily the focal point, but it would be hard to imagine most of the music without it.

Andrew Schinder, New York City Jazz Record

A US reviewer on the album Keel Road by the Danish String Quartet

Put in coldly mechanical terms, ‘Keel Road’ is a collection of folk songs, dances, laments and legends ancient and modern, which the members of the DSQ arranged for string quartet. By now it seems obvious what the twin missions of this group are: project the gravitas of serious classical quartet repertoire with a spirit of rare generosity and plurality (as in their ‘Prism’ sequence of discs for ECM), and simultaneously amplify the dignity of folk music by transmogrifying into a fiddle combo of extraordinary grace and beauty of tone. […] Everything about ‘Keel Road’ is just so: immaculate ECM production, impassioned musicianship, impeccable planning. This exceptionally lovely disc trades on the contrast between the apparent uniqueness of Northern places and the universality of the routines and specifically the music of their inhabitants. Do not let it pass you by.

Richard Hanlon, Music Web International (‘Recording of the month’)

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

This work is art the highest level. But fear not: it swings in its own way, because like Bartók’s work, it is infused with the natural syncopation the rhythmic complexity that has been at the heart of the people’s music for centuries. Perhaps the best example of the microtonality (note bending) and freedom of rhythm is the title track, which swirls around the driving ¾ groove Ban sets with his left hand. Maneri slides his way up and down through notes (not unlike Billie Holiday) in a joyous, pulsating romp. The artists had no interest in merely playing transcriptions of ancient melodies. With their deep knowledge and technique, their goal ‘was to bring (the music) into our own world and improvise,’ Ban recently informed this reviewer. ‘We wanted to blow, and still do justice to the original.’ A fine example is ‘The Boyar’s Doina’, written in a form that’s widely believed to be connected to the Middle East, but which Maneri and Ban transform into a hypnotic, slowly-swaying blues.

Keith Hoffman, New York City Jazz Record

The vinyl-reissue of Marilyn Crispell’s Amaryllis within the Luminessence-series is hailed in Germany

Wer mit den Werken der einzelnen Musiker vertraut ist, wird feststellen, dass das Trio auf einigen Stücken die Möglichkeit auslotet, bis zu 30 Jahren alten Eigenkompositionen eine neue Gestalt zu geben. Marilyn Crispell hat sich dafür ihr Werk ‘Rounds’ ausgesucht, Gary Peacock das eröffnende ‘Voices from the Past’ sowie ‘December Greenwings’ und Paul Motian wirft dafür ‘Conception Vessel’ in die Runde. Im Vergleich mit den Originalen meint man, die Energie und Frische in der noch jungen Beziehung des Trios wahrnehmen zu können. Neben neuen Kompositionen bat ECM-Mastermind Manfred Eicher darum, auch einige langsame Improvisationen aufzunehmen, um die Kommunikation der drei Musiker untereinander deutlich werden zu lassen. Ergebnis dieser Bitte sind die Stücke ‘Amaryllis’, ‘Voices’, ‘Avatar’ und das ihm gewidmete ‘M.E.’ Mit dem wundervollen Stück ‘Prayer’, komponiert von Mitchell Weiss, klingt das herausragende Album aus.

Ralf Henke, LP-Magazin