Feb 1, 2013
Kris Davis’s style is dry and blunt and authoritative, and still changing. At 31 she’s worked in a circle of musicians including the saxophonists Tony Malaby and Ingrid Laubrock, the bassists John Hébert and Eivind Opsvik, and the drummer Jeff Davis, her former husband. Her playing uses space and tension and contrast; it always has an interior plan and doesn’t leap at you to show you how hip it is. It’s very open, but it comes with rules.
“A lot of times I’ll try to write as little as possible,” she told me. “I want to write things that guide musicians through a certain idea but not control what they’re actually doing. A lot of times I don’t have a specific way in mind that something should sound.”
Growing up in Calgary, Alberta, she’d studied classical music at the Royal Conservatory, but found out about jazz in high school. She got into it slowly, transcribing Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett and eventually studying it at the University of Toronto. And in general she has taken strong but measured steps since. You can hear her small-group conception really come together on “Good Citizen,” from 2010, and then become more abstract in her work with the remarkable trio Paradoxical Frog, with Ms. Laubrock and the drummer Tyshawn Sorey.
She heard free jazz pretty much for the first time around the age of 20 at the Banff International Jazz Workshop, where she met Mr. Malaby and his wife, the pianist Angelica Sanchez, who would later become important friends and collaborators. Moving to New York in 2001 she got up to speed very gradually; after her first album, “Lifespan,” she changed her style completely.
“I decided not to play chords anymore, just to play lines,” she said. “I started improvising that way. Those left-hand chords are such a jazz-piano sound; I didn’t want it to sound that way. So I rarely play chords, and I rarely double the bass line.”
More recently she completed a degree in classical composition from City College in New York.
Two years ago she toured Portugal playing solo concerts, then made a solo recording, “Aeriol Piano,” which has just come out on the Clean Feed label. It’s seriously good, a kind of logical crossing of Morton Feldman and Mr. Jarrett, with her own touch and strong sense of compositional organization framing the soloing. It includes a version of the standard “All the Things You Are”; she comes at it in her all-lines fashion, implying melody and harmony and finally making the tune clear at the end.
by Ben Ratliff – NY Times
Feb 1, 2013
Intimacy. That’s what always strikes me about Kris Davis. The sense of intimacy. Having been on the scene for only few short years, her visibility has grown in the last few years due to a string on releases as leader and with collaborators. I mistakenly forgot to write about her last record Good Citizen (Fresh Sounds New Talent) as one of my albums of the year in 2010. But this year make no mistake, my two top records of years are set in stone. And I bet you can guess one of them right now, eh?!? There is a peaceful quality to her latest release, the solo piano effort, Aeriol Piano (Clean Feed). “Saturn Return” unravels slowly with dark intentions crafted around a simply melody before moving to a more improvisational mood. It feels like an early John Cage piano work. It’s complex yet gentle enough for the newest of listeners to grasp every endearing moment. A slight reinterpretation of “Good Citizen” is intriguing to experience without the quartet from the last record. This time around it feels more climatic; with more cascading moments than the previous version may not have allowed you to hear. “Beam The Eyes” travels methodically along a path of inversion that makes crackling and disturbing sparks of life towards its conclusion. This theme also carries through a short time later on both “Stone” and “The Last Time” with moments that parallel Keith Jarrett and even more multiform pieces by Morton Feldman. There’s a serenity that is broken up with moments of fierce treatment to keyboard but with clear justification of theme. “Work For Water” closes out the album on a steady more classical trained tone. It’s a soft wistful way to end a session that has interwoven so many challenging patterns. For one to really enjoy and understand one of the best kept secrets in jazz, you have to experience Aeriol Piano for yourself. Kris Davis is one of a short handful of creative pianist on the scene today. If you are looking for legacy of modern improvised piano since Keith Jarrett, and more recently Jason Moran–Kris Davis is it. More on Aeriol Piano towards the end of the year. But for now, I repeat what I said at the outset–Aeriol Piano is one of my two top albums of the year. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Stephan Moore
Feb 1, 2013
Novela is an ideal title for an album with so much narrative appeal. All sorts of stories are told through the music on this unusual retrospective, which consists of songs written by saxophonist Tony Malaby for trios and quartets over the past decade and newly arranged for nonet by pianist Kris Davis. With its richly developed themes and wide stylistic reach, this is an album to curl up with. Like the weather in Chicago (whose schools of free jazz provide their share of edgy inspiration), the temperature of Novela can change in a flash. The warm crosscurrents of “Mothers Love” give way to chilly swells and agitated lines from Joachim Badenhorst’s bass clarinet, and then to a haunted symphonic closing. “Floating Head,” a work of both interchangeable parts and independent gears keyed to Dan Peck’s animated time-marking tuba, shifts from Greek tragedy to circus music to West Side Story. “Warblepeck” is Kurt Weill filtered through Herny Threadgill’s Very Very Circus. Davis, who mostly stays in the background on piano, creates neat pockets of space for improvising-Malaby on tenor, Ralph Alessi on trumpet and Michael Attias on alto saxophone make the strongest statements. (The group also includes baritone saxophonist Andrew Hadro, trombonist Ben Gerstein and drummer John Hollenbeck, mostly holding nothing back.) And on tunes like “Remolino,” with it’s sharp thrusts and impressionistic streaks, there’s a sense of a group improvisation as well. But the bold, unified voice of the ensemble speaks loudest, making Novela a page-turner you’ll want to revisit many times.
Lloyd Sachs
Feb 1, 2013
Over the last couple of years in New York one method for deciding where to hear jazz on a given night has been to track down the pianist Kris Davis. She has been playing in town for 10 years, but her gigs have become almost constant: with the bassist Eivind Opsvik, the saxophonists Tony Malaby and Ingrid Laubrock, the drummer Tyshawn Sorey and others. It was only a matter of time before she became unavoidable on record, and now’s that time. Ms. Davis’s style is wide, and dependent on its context: a kind of tour of post-free jazz and contemporary classical music, Keith Jarrett to Cecil Taylor to Morton Feldman. Her own work can be cerebral and darting and easy to grasp, as on the solid new record by the Kris Davis Trio, “Good Citizen” (Fresh Sound), with the bassist John Hebert and the drummer Tom Rainey. Somewhere in the middle of the scale, mildly experimental, is “Three” (Clean Feed), by the drummerless SKM Trio, with the saxophonist Stephen Gauci and bassist Michael Bisio. And on “Paradoxical Frog” (Clean Feed), in a trio with Ms. Laubrock and Mr. Sorey — a frequently stunning record, and so far one of this year’s best — she bounces among extremes of quiet and attack, changing her role drastically from track to track.
Feb 1, 2013
Kris Davis is one of my favourite pianist. I rank her right up there with Jason Moran and Keith Jarrett. Her compositions are compelling and inventive. Her newest release, Good Citizen is absolutely stellar. A vibrant and explosive trio session with regular collaborators John Herbert and Tom Rainey, Good Citizen is Davis’ third recorded output this year (Paradoxical Frog with Ingrid Laubrock and SKM Trio) with a fourth coming before years end. All containing the rich cerebral outlook that makes Kris Davis one of the best musicians deserving much much much wider recognition. Good Citizen opens with improvising title track smoothly sliding into point/counterpoint interplay of “Where Does That Tunnel Go”, a piece that really demonstrates Davis command and freedom with her trio. The album bounces with exuberance and experimentalisim. This is post modernism with quiet accessibility. Another favourite of mine which is very much in the downtown NYC realm is “Recession Special”– a pulsating piece that rips itself up and down the scale. Very much what you would expect to see late night in a dark, dingy, New York club setting. It’s follow up “Skinner Box” is more in he Cecil Taylor vein, quiet and minimal with Herbert and Rainey really coming to fore with Davis hold a delicate beautiful balance in the background. Probably the most accessible track is “B Side” an upbeat boppish piece with some fantastic solo work from the always terrific Tom Rainey. A Monkish, Davis leads the group through a nice journey that will definitely have your head and feet bobbing up and down. Great stuff. “Human Condition” is wonderful ballad could easily become your late night theme. It’s lovely and romantic but still has a sense of adventure that fits perfect with the rest of the surroundings. Good Citizen closes with a number that featured earlier this year on the quartet album Paradoxical Frog, “The Iron Spider.” This time without the rip current of Ingrid Laubrock’s saxophone. But as a trio piece, “The Iron Spider” still packs a huge avant garde punch. Kris Davis fills in the gap with the same verve and excitement. The two pieces aren’t drastically different, there’s a bit more detail from Herbert and Rainey in this newer recording but at the end of the day it is a stellar piece of work written by all three musicians. Good Citizen just might be the most varied session to date. It is by far, the must have for any one interested in the current crop of free jazz artists. Good Citizen is definitely in my best albums of the year category. And Kris Davis is one of the most important pianists working today and deserving of a wider audience. I hope after you listen to it, you agree.
JazzWrap
