Joe Lovano (tenor
saxophone, taragato, gongs); Marcin Wasilewski (piano); Slawomir Kurkiewicz
(double bass); Michal Miskiewicz (drums)
Back in the day, when the
Sage used to put on the sort of jazz concerts that the Glasshouse so markedly
doesn’t, Joe Lovano came up with a more than adequate quartet of himself, Jack
DeJohnette on drums, Esperanza Spalding on bass and Leo Genovese on piano. It
was as good as you might imagine a group like that to be.
He’s been going for years, has Joe. I first heard him when a work colleague gave me a copy of 52nd Street Themes that someone had given her and she didn’t like. I thought it was great and have been chucking money in Joe’s direction ever since. This new album is the second he has recorded with Wasilewski’s trio following 2020’s Arctic Riff, (and a more ECM album title than that one you’d be hard pushed to imagine).
And a more ECM piece than
opener, Love in the Garden, you would
also have trouble finding. A delicate
filigree of piano, almost subterranean bass notes and little more than cymbal
shimmies from the drummer; Lovano’s sax is high, warm and lonesome in front;
it’s a piece of hints and nudges. Golden
Horn is built over an insistent, rolling piano figure. Low in the mix it
allows cavernous space for Lovano’s playing. It’s not really a solo, as such,
as a series of statements that subtlety build as the piano seems to sneak up
behind him, not quite reaching the same level but attracting attention by adding
frills and flourishes to the mix before a solo of fragments like Lovano’s
earlier statements. When Lovano comes back in piano and sax are now operating
at a much higher level of intensity and Lovano is blowing through the higher
notes, just shy of a squeal.
Homage
is
a departure, full of jabs and questions. Lovano’s sax is birdsong, the drums
add a percussive shuffle and Wasilewski seems to chase himself up and down the
keys, probing and answering himself before Lovano adds a few choruses of sultry
swing prodded and pushed by Kurkiewicz’s bass punching lines in behind him.
Miskiewicz adds a drum solo of cymbal washes rumbles and seemingly random
cracks.
This
Side – Catville is the one you turn the volume up for,
mainly to appreciate Lovano’s shouts into the void and the sheer busy-ness of
the drummer rolling and tumbling energetically at the back. The bassist is
again asking questions and filling in the spaces; Wasilewski’s piano is
restrained but, you feel, always on the edge of something. When he moves into
the light his playing is dramatic, cinematic; a new score for Slaughter on 10th Avenue. In
time, though, some optimism shines through and, whilst retaining the balletic
drama the movements are more uplifting and hopeful. Lovano lifts it all
further; it’s a conversation for all the band, crossing paths and pulling in
different directions but all a single whole. They all have the freedom to
explore but the ears to keep in touch with each other. Closer, Projection, is a solo piece for Lovano’s
gongs some ringing hollow, others tapping like dripping water. There’s only two
minutes of it.
The more you listen to
this album the more its strengths start to shine through. It’s a very strong
group album yet there seems to be relatively little group playing. It’s an
intelligent but not unemotional album and it draws you in as you follow each
instrument's path through the pieces and realise how together and how apart
they are at different moments. I like this one a lot. Dave Sayer
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