Jazz and poetry (or poetry and jazz, as some prefer) tends to be a subject that divides opinion. I remember many a friendly yet animated discussion on this subject with my good friend, the late Richard Palmer. Sceptical as Richard was about the possibilities of the genre, I like to think he would have approved of this terrific release.
It’s a setting of what the press information calls “ lyric excerpts” from The Waves by Virginia Woolf, the resultant whole composed and interpreted by vocalist Marie-Florence Burki. Working in spot-on, intimate and beautifully intoned English, she manages to pull off the extraordinary feat of combining, most convincingly, passages of straight recitative with subtly jazz-sprung phrasing and dynamics, her upper-register figures especially affecting.
Her astutely cast vocalising, sensitive to the power of silence throughout, is complemented by outstanding work from a finely attuned string quartet plus double bass. The musicians reveal a marvellous sensitivity to the “in-between” quality of what is being asked of them, responding with both exquisitely pitched bowed and plucked solo lines and nuanced ensemble interaction.
The press release speaks of music that is “at once fragile, melancholic, poignant and luminous […] sailing between experimental folk and contemporary jazz in a neo-classical atmosphere.” Just as anyone with a serious interest in the jazz and poetry genre in America has to have a copy of the 1957 masterpiece Weary Blues, where Harlem Renaissance man (and bopper) Langston Hughes reads his poetry to music from Leonard Feather and Charles Mingus, those in search of the contrasting but complementary equivalent in contemporary European culture today need to listen to – and relish – the haunting marvel that is The Waves.
Discography
(1) The Sea Has Wrinkles; (2) Come; I Am A Stalk; All My Ships Are White; I See, I Hear; (1) The Sun Rose; (2) Water; Our Secret Territory; I Am The Seasons; We Are Creators; (1) The Sun Had Risen; (2)Beauty Set Flowing; The Wave Rises ( 45.13)
(1) Marie-Florence Burki (v); Sofia De Falco (vn); Paola Hsu (vla); Bernadette Köbell (clo); Snejana Prodanova (b); Elodie Thery (clo). Neuchâtel, 1-3 June 2023. (2) Therey out.
Label La Buissonne RJAL397047
