There seems to be a lot of albums around at the moment where the usual midfield of a bass has been replaced with a string section and here comes another addition to that particular stream. Whatever your concerns about that may be the album is worth having for Berg’s piano playing alone. It’s hard not to think of this as a typical ECM recording in that we have unusual voicings, a trumpeter/flugelhorn player with Kenny Wheeler-ish tones and a Jarrett-esque pianist. But it is a bit livelier than that. Whilst some pieces are ‘moods’ others are more sprightly, perhaps dealing with folklore of trolls and other Norwegian mythical creatures. I may, however, be dealing in stereotypes here.
It opens with delicate
piano and glacial strings, consistent with the ice patterns on the cover. The
piano gently develops and pulls the strings along with it, growing and
insinuating their way until Powell lifts it further with a punchy trumpet solo
and the instruments wrap around each other as he soars.
Circumzenithal
lifts
us further with the drums providing extra energy and momentum, indeed Johansen
shares a moment or two of call and response with the rest of the band, his
drums being answered by bold, melodramatic statements from the others.
1914
opens
with a pastoral idyll on piano, whilst the trumpet soars above. It’s all about
the innocence and the ignorance of what was to follow in the subsequent four
years. Two minutes in the expected catastrophe develops; the drummer is
dropping bombs and there is a flurry of notes from the others before solo piano
portrays a balletic dance of death, supported by mournful strings. That mood is
carried forward into a long cello coda, which calls to mind Elgar’s Cello
Concerto which covered similar themes in similar tones.
Hydrophobic
lifts
the mood; everything has stepped up a gear, the strings sound a bit thin lacking
the heft and solidity that a bass would give. In compensation they are so light
footed that when they whirl around Berg’s piano in a flow of increasing
complexity, responding to him or leaping to the front and falling back; it’s a
joy to hear. There is a fluidity to the piano playing at times in its tumble of
ideas that recalls Berg’s recent solo albums.
After the dramatic rough
and tumble of Duelling Rivers comes
the epic closing Three Point Suite.
Opening with barely perceptible piano and a cello drone, various fragments are
slowly added to the mix. Powell adds a brief invocation of morning over gently
rolling piano. The piece steadily, but very slowly increases in impact until a
brief break out leads to complex intricate work by the pianist backed by
optimistic strings that conjures up the old American West. The writing for the
strings is exemplary in the way they work with the piano, working both with and
in contrast to Berg. The trumpet contributes additional light and shade,
circling round some of the lines taken by the strings.
It’s another of those ‘Is
this jazz?’ albums. It follows on from the ambition shown by Berg’s solo albums
and suggests a musician bursting with ideas and ambition about both music and
form. We’ll wait and see where he goes next, but, I for one will be following
his next steps closely.
The album came out
towards the end of 2023 and is available through most retailers. I bought mine
off a nice man in a basement in Soho and he wrote his name on it, which was
nice. Dave Sayer
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