The latest in a varied and notable series on ECM from Cohen, surely one of the world’s leading trumpeters, with a stellar band originating with him from Tel Aviv and now split between there, New York and France. This outing recoils from his most recent rock-leaning Big Vicious towards the poignant 2016 Into the Silence which was an epitaph for his father.
But Naked Truth goes further, aiming to strip back both the notes and the prepared ideas, as it was conceived and recorded as a set of eight short improvised pieces.
The band are long time collaborators and entirely inhabit each others’ spaces, and comparisons are inevitable with the similar set up, sound and dynamic of the excellent Shai Maestro quartet as heard on Human, my favourite album of 2021. This is no accident as Maestro’s band share a cultural background, but with the superb U.S. Philip Dizack on trumpet.
There is a very sparse, sombre and delicate mood throughout, and straight-ahead jazzers may find themselves dozing, and the band perhaps self indulgent. But the playing is magnificent throughout, with heart-breaking and subtle trumpet tones interlaced with mystic, Arabic and classical leaning piano, and sonorous and ominous bass. The plangent mood is illuminated by shimmering, rippling and sizzling percussion, as the remarkable Ziv Ravitz is given free rein to explore obscure sound spaces.
I can believe the pieces are improvised throughout, Jarrett style, except for Pt. 7 which works over the Beatles’ And I love her as a luscious and stately lament.
The final act is Cohen reciting Departure a
poem by Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky, which opens “It is necessary to begin the
departure from the splendour of the skies and the colours of earth, to stand
alone and face the silence of death….”. A soliloquy perfectly matched to the
music, and indeed our times. Heavy, to be taken sparingly and warily. Chris K
Release date: 25.02.2022 ECM 2737 Format : CD LP
Recorded at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines, in September 2021, and produced by Manfred Eicher.
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