Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells (Pyroclastic Records PR 40)
This is the Courvoisier/Halvorson duo’s third collaboration on record, and as with the Jon Irabagon release discussed below this means I’ve got some catching up to do. It’s clear from the off that the two are very well attuned to each other, and given the relatively few precedents for piano/guitar duos on record (that of Bill Evans and Jim Hall being the one which springs easiest to mind), the territory it stakes out is relatively fresh. It’s made fresher still by the opening title track despite the very faint echoes of John Abercrombie in the guitar part. The welcome impoliteness of the piece, hinting as it does at a duo more than willing to take things “out” keeps the notion of a certain German record label at bay, however.
The compositional split is even between the two musicians, and this makes for an overall balance finely struck. Halvorson’s Beclouded lives up to its title in terms of how it might for listeners of a certain sensitivity conjure up images of a Thursday afternoon in October. That evocative quality seems rather rare on record these days, and in turn kind of summarises how empathetic this duo is. The intertwining of lines at around the 2.40 mark is a thing of unassuming wonder and highlights how music devoid of emphatic gestures can often leave the most lasting impression.
A 300-word review doesn’t really afford room for the coverage this album deserves, so closing it with a discussion of Halvorson’s Float Queens doesn’t by any means imply disdain for Courvoisier’s composing. The piece ranges far and wide yet retains an overall coherence, albeit of a rarefied order, the like of which arguably only comes with deep mutual understanding and the ability to listen deep and respond in the moment.
Jon Irabagon: Server Farm (Irabbagast 029)
My ignorance regarding sax player and composer Jon Irabagon’s work is but an outcome of the “so much music, so little time” syndrome which many committed, still insatiably curious listeners might feel. This album is more than sufficient provocation for me to try and put that situation right, and that in itself is more than can be said for a lot of the stuff out there.
The album is both conceptually and compositionally ambitious, and the 10-piece band brings it exquisitely to life. The risk of overload is deftly avoided, although Irabagon’s goal to try and get to grips with the encroachment of AI in our lives ensures the music has a density which is likely to put off both listeners of a culturally conservative persuasion and those for whom “jazz” doesn’t exist if it’s not squarely aimed at the dance floor.
The initial tones of the opening Colocation could (maybe even do) constitute a ring-tone before drummer Dan Weiss leads the charge of the human element as he lays down the fast tempo around which the other musicians seem to coalesce, with Matt Mitchell’s keyboard work evoking shades of breathless fusion. The ensemble work has the effect of rendering the old tight/ragged dichotomy irrelevant in a manner not entirely dependent on Irabagon’s compositional chops, and the line between the scored and the spontaneous is blurred.
The music on Graceful Exit comprises some of the most reflective on the album, as highlighted by Peter Evans on trumpet and violinist and vocalist Mazz Swift, whose contributions tease out a lyrical edge.
Given the AI theme, Spy is a title rife with implications and the music reflects that. The primacy of the ensemble is pronounced if considered against the absence of soloists in the traditional sense, although Swift’s vocal is a work of art in itself, considering how she draws out the dark, dystopian implications of the lyric.
Andrea Rinciari: Soho Sessions (Andrea Rinciari Recordings ARRCD01)
In the era of ridiculously excitable, borderline hysterical marketing, this album, amounting as it does to a latter-day “blowing date”, is refreshing by dint of the fact that it’s impervious to such guff and also not the sort of thing which attracts such vacuous hype. Rinciari is a guitarist out of the Christian, Kessel and Green lineage and the songs the quartet (rounded out by Alex Garnett on tenor sax, Lorenzo Morabito on bass and drummer Mark Taylor) play range from the venerable to the rather under-covered. Freddie Redd’s Time To Smile is both a prime example of the latter and a description of what listeners might come to regard this album as. The piece is taken at a medium-up tempo which seems perfectly suited to it and both the leader and Garnett get to lay out some credentials, which they both do with aplomb.
Although for me Coleman Hawkins was never the most convincing conveyor of the kind of jazz “modernism” that took hold in the mid- to late 1940s, the rendition of his Bean And The Boys here sounds like a refined take on that strand of the tradition. The Rinciari and Garnett unisons are on the money to the extent that they don’t sound machine-tooled to within an inch of their lives, while bass and drums provide a firm yet airy beat that’s entirely empathetic.
Polka Dots And Moonbeams arguably qualifies as something venerable in view of how many times it’s been recorded, but still there’s something satisfying about Rinciari’s solo performance of it, affording as it does a kind of insight into his love for the music he makes and the skill he brings to the process.
