Feb 1, 2013
Paradoxical Frog- Tyshawn Sorey/Kris Davis/Ingrid Laubrock
We find Ingrid Laubrock back on this other trio with Kris Davis on piano and Tyshawn Sorey on drums, another unusual trio line-up, for an album of equal quality despite its different approach. All eight tracks contain elements of composition and structure, and they are almost equally distributed among the trio : three by Davis, three by Sorey, two by Laubrock. Yet composition and structure act as footholds on an adventurous journey, the rocks which help you cross the stream. In contrast to the Tom Rainey trio, the general nature of the music is more welcoming, more gentle, more organic in its development. The intensity can change dramatically in one and the same piece, evolving from high energy towards calm moments, yet it is the open nature of the pieces that is its strongest characteristic. Sorey’s “Slow Burn” is indeed slow, with the least number of notes necessary to create a great atmosphere full of tension. The tones are stretched, and remain open, waiting for silence to evaporate them or to be replaced with new ones, quietly, slowly. On “Canines”, the open nature remains, with silence dominating, fractured by some bluesy chords and incredibly sensitive blowing by Laubrock, possibly one of her biggest strengths, yet slowly a theme emerges, the tempo increases, and the piece gets some harmonic development, like a story being told. A musical story. The whole album is like this, with linear story-telling, careful attention to detail and overall effect, without falling back on easy patterns. The biggest effect comes from the slow tension-building silences that define the overall sound : there is no hurry, the pace is measured, each note ripens fully and almost individually. The density of the album shifts repeatedly, but regardless of the moment, it is always very lyrical and with three musicians working as one on the same concept. Really great. For those interested in the album’s title : the paradoxical frog is also called the shrinking frog, because the tadpole can have three to four times the size of the adult animal.
Feb 1, 2013
Tyshawn Sorey/Kris Davis/Ingrid Laubrock
It’s almost a chore to keep up with the prolific Clean Feed. The Portuguese record label regularly releases albums in batches of 10, features a simple design aesthetic that both alludes to and looks past classic Blue Note covers, and mixes up the roster with well-knowns as well as obscure jazz musicians (often from the label’s native Lisbon). The draw for me on Paradoxical Frog was drummer Tyshawn Sorey, whose quiet Morton Feldman-like compositions are like raindrops falling into oblong ponds. But the discovery here is his two fellow players, pianist Kris Davis and tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. All three share a similar approach to abstract jazz composition and execution: loose and unfolding like a flowering tea, yet full of unexpected color. –NPR Music
Lars Gotrich
Feb 1, 2013
Kris Davis — Rye Eclipse (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2008) I find I’m having trouble writing about the latest Kris Davis CD. It’s good, and it’s free jazz, but saying that alone doesn’t do it justice. It’s different, and it’s clearly an evolutionary step and a gutsy one, for a pianist whose quartet started out with a more conventional sound. The excellent Free Jazz blog has noted Davis’ progression into more abstract musical forms. Her quartet, formed in 2004, includes Tony Malaby on saxophone, who’s not exactly dinner-jazz material himself, but the debut Lifeline CD stuck to a comforting kind of sound, with plenty of towering piano and sax work, but an overall quilted feel that goes over well with jazz-club audiences. Have a listen here, on Davis’ Web page. The Slightest Shift pushed the limits into some very interesting open-ended improvising, and Rye Eclipse completes the ascent into full-on madness. I love it. It’s not as if the music has lost structure. “Black Tunnel” uses a dramatic composed line that appears between episodes of light, fast playing, where Davis does toneful morse-code pecking on the piano. The piece ends with Davis hammering one tiny, tiny, quiet piano note, a humorous touch that sums up the album’s attitude. Then, you’ve got the title track, which opens the album with an abrasive, pre-arranged clamour, an elephant stomp that lets you know you’re not in for an evening of standards. The piece’s guts are built of robotic piano rhythms that, after a quiet segment, return to sit underneath a gutteral Malaby solo. Other tracks, like “Minnow Bucket,” get into full-on group improvising but without slipping into that stark, academic atmosphere that European improv crafts so well. It’s still jazz, and even club-friendly jazz (relatively speaking). The wild abandon and velvety jazz touches make for a coarse mix sometimes, but that’s what I like about this album. It’s not a carbon copy of ’60s free jazz, it’s not your usual improv session, and it has a voice distinguishable from European free jazz. Davis has crafted something fresh and new here. Davis’ next act might be a full-on improvisational quartet; it’s an equal-billing affair called RIDD, for its four members’ last names. Drummer Jeff Davis is in that one, too, as is Reuben Radding, a bassist whose free-improv output can be sampled generously on his Web page. I’ll be keeping an eye out for their upcoming CD on Clean Feed.
Feb 1, 2013
Kris Davis Rye Eclipse A contest of daredevils. From the beginning, tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby gave her group a rough edge, but three albums in, they’ve all caught the bug. Bassist Eivind Opsvik and drummer Jeff Davis pull the rhythm apart at the seams, and the pianist-leader plunges in with rough block chords, but the trade-offs can be intricate, as in “Wayne Oskar,” when the piano leads into intriguing abstractions, then backs off as Malaby finishes the thought.
Tom Hull
Feb 1, 2013
Ecco un talento da seguire con attenzione. La pianista canadese Kris Davis opera a New York dagli inizi del decennio e dopo una prima fase legata a modelli neo-bop (evidente nel suo primo disco, Lifespan), ha iniziato ad esplorare territori più aperti, formando questo quartetto nel 2002 con il marito batterista Jeff Davis, il formidabile sassofonista Tony Malaby e il bassista Eivind Opsvik. In questi sei anni la formazione ha suonato regolarmente negli Stati Uniti, in Canada, Norvegia e Svezia diventando un organico fortemente coeso, che opera sul confine tra i modelli della libera improvvisazione post-free e un rigoroso quadro strutturale che fa capo alle complesse composizioni della pianista [di cui avevamo in passato recensito The Slightest Shift]. Dotata di una ricco background classico, Kris si muove con grande equilibrio tra la compostezza formale della musica da camera e la libertà di sperimentazione che ha acquisito nelle sue collaborazioni con John Hollenbeck, Ron Horton, Chris Speed e altri. Ne deriva un album sorprendente per maturità, fantasia e ricchezza di sintesi dove non mancano momenti di forte coinvolgimento ritmico, con sequenze iterate basate sul pianoforte compulsivo e martellante che sostiene le appassionanti improvvisazioni di Malaby. Da questo punto di vista il momento più convincente dell’album (anche per l’ascoltatore meno avvezzo alle cose d’avanguardia) è “Black Tunnel” ma nel percorso non mancano occasioni per coinvolgersi in una musica ricca di brillanti colori e animata da frequenti mutamenti di clima. Sul fronte dei solisti spicca innanzitutto l’impetuoso e avvincente lavoro di Tony Malaby legato alla pianista da una forte empatia. Il lavoro strumentale di quest’ultima è tanto più apprezzabile in quanto evita inutili protagonismi in funzione delle dinamiche complessive: ora è magmatico e tecnicamente eloquente, dai fortissimi clusters, ora si limita a scarne (ma efficaci) funzioni di sostegno. Segnatevi il nome di Kris Davis: ne sentiremo ancora parlare.
Angelo Leonardi
Feb 1, 2013
I am not too familiar with the way in which musicians work with labels, or how long it takes before they can get their material released, but I am perplexed that pianist Kris Davis manages to release two albums within a few months time on two different labels, and more importantly, that both are of a very high qualitative level. The RIDD Quartet further consists of Jeff Davis on drums, Jon Irabagon on sax and Reuben Radding on bass. This album is not unlike “Rye Eclipse”, although it is more transparent, more accessible, less urgent in its need to tell the story as its predecessor. Many of the compositions have the same abstract and emotional quality of her other recent album. But this is of course a quartet album, not Kris Davis and band. Jon Irabagon I find a revelation on this album. To be honest, I thought his “Outright” album, released earlier this year, was a little over-ambitious, yet here his tone, free lyricism and emotional drive are excellent, not of the same level of Malaby, though, but really strong. Radding is as good as we know him and so is Jeff Davis, and both complement each other well. The second track, “Sky Circles”, starts out quite slowly and gentle, yet it gradually starts building intensity and momentum. Whether it’s slow emotional explorations as on the title track (which does not sound like an avalanche at all, by the way), or a more intense and raw approach as on the beginning “The Eye And The Telescope”, the four musicians manage to have a quite unique coherent and creative angle, with introspective and expansive moods alternating, exploring sound interactions and rhythmic invention. The stylistical elements used are subtle : repetitive piano string pluckings, or repetitive sax phrases, come and go, as do melodies and themes, and so does the volume, and the instruments, but all very subtly, creating slight differences and changes, nothing abrupt, yet full of little surprises that make this quite a great listen. I like it a lot!
stef
