CD Review: ARILD ANDERSON & THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL JAZZ ORCHESTRA/TOMMY SMITH – CELEBRATION

 

ARILD ANDERSON & THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL JAZZ ORCHESTRA/TOMMY SMITH – Celebration

ECM 2259/279 0947

Martin Kershaw (cl, ss, as); Paul Towndrow (as); Tommy Smith (fl, ts); Konrad Wiszniewski (ts); Bill Fleming (bcl, bs); Ryan Quigley, Cameron Jay, Richard Iles, Tom MacNiven (t, fl-h); Chris Grieve, Phil O’Malley, Michael Owers (tb); Lorna MacDonald (b-tb); Steve Hamilton (p); Calum, Gourlay (b); Alyn Cosker (d)

Recorded October 2010 

What better way to celebrate the 40^th Anniversary of ECM Records than with an album of compositions that are indelibly linked to the label and the artists who record for it; and who better to perform it than one of the label’s longest serving musicians, Arild Anderson as the soloist with arguably Europe’s leading big band.

Anderson needs no introduction. One of Scandinavia’s finest bass players, who has worked in numerous aggregations as leader and sideman for ECM, and a soloist who is more than up for the challenges that this project was to throw at him.

The selection of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, however, would not have been a foregone conclusion but even the most casual listen to the music endorses whole heartedly that the right decision was made. The last few years has seen the SNJO develop into a world class orchestra, able to handle material from the classic big band era and composers to contemporary commissions and works from the leading musicians around the globe.  

The compositions on this live recording features newly commissioned arrangements from six arrangers  from the UK, Europe and America that cast new light on such familiar material as Chick Corea’s ‘Crystal Silence’, and ‘My Song’ by fellow pianist Keith Jarrett (arranged by Makota Ozone and Geoffrey Keezer respectively); but it as a complete entity that this project is realised so successfully.

With superlative arrangements, a master soloist in bassist Andersen, and an ensemble as flexible as the SNJO the album is captivating from start to finish, and in an era of overlong CDs one has to lament the fact that this is not a double album. In an hour long programme it is impossible to single out individual tracks as the main event of the night. From the opening ‘May Dance’ (featuring the orchestra’s director, Tommy Smith’s tenor solo), Mike Gibb’s arrangements of Anderson’s composition ‘Independency, Part 4’ to the beautifully structured and dynamic ‘Ulrikas Dans’ by Trygve Seim (incidental y the only composer who has a hand in re-arranging his own composition for the orchestra) Arild Andersen and the SNJO provide a truly fitting celebration for the music of ECM.

CD Review: KEITH JARRETT - SLEEPER

Jarrett/Garbarek/Danielsson/Christensen : Sleeper

ECM 2290/91 3705570

Keith Jarrett (p, perc); Jan Garbarek (ts, ss, fl, perc); Palle Danielsson (b); Jon Christensen (d, perc) Recorded Tokyo; April 16^th 1979

With the Keith Jarrett discography for ECM already a monumental body of work it is still an event when a new release is made available, not least an unissued live performance form the classic 70’s ‘Belonging’ band.

This stellar band of Jarrett with Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen released only four albums during its existence, the two studio albums My Song and Belonging; along with two live offerings in Nude Ants, and released some 10 years later, Personal Mountains.

Rather than de-value the importance of an influential unit, this further helping of concert performance adds to appreciation of just how good the ‘European’ quartet were, and that the passing of time has done nothing to lessen the impact of Jarrett’s compositions.

From the opening rendition of “Personal Mountains” Jarrett plays like a man possessed with his ideas tumbling out at a furious yet controlled pace, with the distinct impression that the music is not being driven by the rhythm team of Danielsson and Christensen, but they themselves are being pulled along in the pianist’s wake.

The real joy in this album is, however, hearing how these four supremely gifted individuals work together as a group. With a sensitivity to tempo and dynamics, the quartet delight with Keith’s  beautiful melodies imbued with feeling and life.

Garbarek’s playing is a revelation to those who have only so far heard his work form the eighties onwards, and his phrasing is distinctly more jazzy and less pressurised, with his tenor playing either tender or cutting by turns yet returning its intensely lyrical bent.

From the exquisite ballad playing of “Innocence”, Garbarek’s delightful flute on “Oasis”, or the joyfully exuberant “New Dance” this yet another essential release in the continually unfolding Jarrett story, and is a must hear disc of 2012.

LOL COXHILL : A CD Retrospective

After hearing the sad news that saxophonist Lol Coxhill had passed away in July, it was only fitting that a return to some of his recordings would be an appropriate way to pay respects to a truly original musician, and a genuinely nice person.

This is a review that I wrote in July 2003 for the original Jazz Views website, that still retains it validity and prompts one to revisit the music once again.

  

Lol Cohill/Howard Riley: Duology                                 

(SLAMCD 249)                                                                                               

A meeting of musical minds in what appears to be the first full CD recording of the pair, although they have played together many times over the last quarter of a century; and therein lies the crux of this CD. A collaboration that shows just how far both men have travelled in that time span, and yet how atuned they are to each others playing.

Riley has in some respects taken a more circuitous route from composition based playing to finding his way to free improvisation, and recently a return back to more structured environments. However, if variety is indeed the spice of life, the pianist shows every intent of keeping a foot firmly in both camps and exploring the grey areas in between, whilst keeping his debt and admiration to Thelonious Monk very much in the mix. Lol is Lol, and plays himself. If perhaps the changes and methods employed by the saxophonist over the years seem less dramatic, he has a recorded body of work that is remarkable in its consistency and sheer variety of contexts in which the Coxhill sound has been not just accepted but readily embraced.Both players have a long history and wealth of experience as solo players, and it is with this very much in mind they approach the music on this disc. Not so much a musical dialogue, but two separate monologues that cross paths and occasionally meet in the most unexpected places.

Split into two distinct halves, the first seven improvisations were recorded at a private session in the afternoon prior to the gig, and tracks 8 to 12 recorded at the evening performance, the music follows a logical path and sequence from one session to the next. On this outing it is perhaps Riley who follows the straighter path, with the soprano exploring the range and timbres of the horn, and the natural acoustics of the room, and this is demonstrated on the longer ‘live’ pieces recorded at the evening session. Both ‘Two Timing’ and ‘Hearing Is Believing’, at 17 minutes and 11 minutes respectively, allow the interplay to develop over a longer time span without ever meandering, whilst the shorter cuts ranging between 3 and 7 minutes certainly help to focus the mind. A fascinating glimpse into the creative processes of two master musicians.