Tag: File Under ? blog

CD Review, Choral Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

File Under Favorites 2022: Christopher Fox and Exaudi

 

Christopher Fox

Trostlieder

Exaudi, conducted by James Weeks

Kairos Music

 

British composer Christopher Fox’s latest portrait CD on Kairos focuses on music for vocal ensemble. Exaudi, conducted by James Weeks, is one of the finest groups for recent repertoire in the UK, and they present this program with characteristic care and detail. This is their third disc devoted to Fox’s music

 

The four Trostlieder Widerwertigkeit des Kriegs (“Poems of comfort in the awfulness of war”) (2015) were written as companion pieces to Heinrich Schütz’s 1648 collection Geistliche Chormusik. Published at the end of the Thirty Years War, it is powerful music imbued with the hard lessons dealt by the conflict. Fox’s own ancestry plays a role in the impetus for the piece. Some of the worst fighting late in the Thirty Years War was in Pomerania, where the composer’s relatives lived until 1945. Fox chose to respond to the commission with settings of poems by seventeenth century poet Martin Opitz. Each of the four volumes in Opitz’s Trostgedichte contains more than 600 lines written in Alexandrine verse. Fox chose to take 44 lines from each book, setting four songs that epitomize the aspects of each volume. 

 

The first song depicts depredations inflicted upon common folk, farmers. In addition to articulated polychords, conjunct melodic gestures are passed among the voices. The latter section features fortissimo keening set against homophonic passages in the low register. Interlocking tenor voices are introduced, bringing the piece to a close. The second song discusses the “Wheel of Fortune” that governs the vicissitudes and blessings of life. This equanimity is addressed by corruscating lines accumulated into verticals, systematically repositioned in register. Upper register clusters and a high soprano melody begin the third song, which extols the virtue of mothers and indicts those who are prideful. Then the material moves successively down each section of the voices, ending with the second basses, each providing another aspect of hope or despair that Opitz juxtaposes in the poem. The fourth and final song also brings together two ideas, those of hope and of a brave death in war. Ricocheting counterpoint and segmented sections create a slow build to intricate and clarion chords, which repeat a regular progression. This texture dissolves into an angular melody in octaves. The climax features a blossoming of the harmony and a chant-like melody in the soprano. 

 

A Spousal Verse (2004), written for the Clerks, is a harmonically rich setting of the sixth stanza of Prothalamion (1596), by the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser. Fragments of melody are interwoven into brief contrapuntal units. Birds, Venus herself, and Peace are implored to bless the wedding, with the last verse serving as a refrain: “Upon your Brydale day, which is not long: Sweete Themmes run softlie, till I end my Song.”

 

Canti di carcere collects three madrigals – fantasma, senso comune and suo tormento – that were contributed to Exaudi’s madrigal book project from 2013-2018. The texts are from interesting sources. fantasma takes its text from the Marxist writer Antonio Gramsci’s Quaderni del carcere (Prison Notebooks), in which he ponders the significance of Dante’s ideas about society, judging them to be utopian instead of true political theory. Despite the intellectual character of the madrigal, the music focuses on the emotions the poet feels while being in prison, his suppositions about Dante standing in for his own frustrations about the nature of society. senso comune is also a setting of Gramsci, perhaps the most famous segment of the notebooks: “Every social stratum has its own ‘common sense’ which is ultimately the most widespread conception of life and morals.” It ends with a brief quote from Dante, further cementing the connection between the two writers. Conjunct lines sit astride secundal verticals in a slow-moving reverie that also explores a stratified pitch vocabulary. Gentle yet tense intervallic relationships between closely following lines and verticals, sung pianissimo, provide an otherworldly ambience that befits the text. Towards the very end, the chords go sideways, only to reveal a melody in octaves that brings the madrigal to an enigmatic close. 

 

The third and final madrigal sets a passage from Canto X of The Inferno: “We see, like those who have imperfect sight, the things that are far from us; to that extent the supreme leader still shines on us,” and Gramsci’s commentary on the text. Accented hocketing and brief pauses interspersed with verticals converge into a passage of abrupt staggered entrances. Consonants begin to be accentuated, and a soprano duet and bass sonorities are juxtaposed. Once again, snippets of melody are interspersed with rests. The unpredictability of attacks unmoors the music from meter, creating instead fluid lines between the silences. The proceedings speed up, creating articulate phrases and diminishing the duration of rests. The ending is homorhythmic, abrupt.

 

In Preluding (2006), the poem Was it for this (1798) by William Wordsworth is set in unusual declamatory fashion. The singers are to vocalize using the poem, the words understood to them but not to the audience. In the score, Fox asks for the effect to be like the gale wind described in the poem. Mission accomplished. The piece is a tremendous challenge for its singers, but Exaudi performs with aplomb.

Every word is clear in the final work on the recording, Song, a setting of W.B. Yeats “Easter 1916,”  composed in 2016 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Easter Uprising against British rule in Ireland. Heterophonic deployments of an arcing melody, inflected with shakes, alternate with vertical pileups. Compound melody provides another layer of the piece’s architecture, but it is fleeting compared to the main sections, which soon are presented in different ensemble deployments. Melody in octaves, slightly staggered and rising in intensity, brings the piece to an emphatic close. 

 

One can readily hear why Fox and Exaudi have had such an extensive collaboration. The compositions suit the performers and vice versa in excellent fashion. Trostlieder is one of our favorite recordings of 2022. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?

Favorites 2022: Andrew McIntosh – Little Jimmy (Recording Review)

Andrew Mcintosh

Little Jimmy

Yarn/Wire

Kairos

Composer and sound recordist Andrew Mcintosh has worked with Yarn/Wire, a quartet of two pianos and two percussionists, for over a decade, and this Kairos portrait CD demonstrates their keen musical connection. The title work references a special scene: recordings of Rosenita Saddle in Angeles National Forest, where Mcintosh routinely walked. It has since been ravaged by damage from wildfires. Sounds from wildlife, particularly wind, birds, and crunching underfoot during nature walks, connect Little Jimmy’s title work and solo piano piece “I Have a Lot to Learn” with feelings of the loss of the Little Jimmy trail camp and verdant memories of vitality.  

 

Pianist Laura Barger opens the CD with “I Have a Lot to Say” (2019). Harmonics provide ritualistic punctuations. These alternate with brief, widely spaced enigmatic chords. Russell Greenberg plays the solo percussion piece “Learning.” Featuring pitched percussion accompanied by environmental sounds and sine tones, the piece is a beguiling tone poem in which birdsong and mallet percussion create a sonorous treble register that the electronics halo with lower sonorities. The resultant blend creates a gradually evolving sound world that evokes connections between the natural world and the organicism of spectralism. 

 

“Little Jimmy” features all four of the performers in Yarn/Wire – Barger and Julia Den Boer, pianists; Greenberg and Sae Hashimoto, percussionists. Bowed vibraphone and quick altissimo runs from the piano begin the piece in tintinnabular style. In the second movement, wind and birdsong are haloed by slowly evolving pitches from bowed and pitched percussion; the pianos chime in with Messiaen-like birdsong of their own. The third movement is a brief interlude that brings back the initial treble gestures. The fourth movement, the longest at ten and a half minutes,  is intriguing. Here, bowed percussion and strummed piano strings combine to create shimmering, slowly evolving textures. The last section of the movement moves towards great aggressiveness, with a clangor of repeating patterns and low sine tones. It is well-crafted, but goes on too long with the same rhythmic attacks and dynamic relentlessness. Alternating piano chords and pitched percussion chimes elaborate the prior movements’ harmonic structure in movement five. All of the various materials from previous movements are combined, leading off with birdsong and electronics, then piano harmonics and mallets. Feedback against birdsong is an interesting choice, and it seems to foretell the tragic end of Little Jimmy Trail. Repeated piano harmonics, triangle punctuations, and the insistence of birdsong and sine tone underscore this portentousness. Chimes toll, wind howls, there is a crescendo in the piano drones and bowed percussion, but nothing can repress the insistence of the nature sounds. A last tolling closes the piece with a sense of mourning rather than closure. Andrew McIntosh is a multalented creator. Little Jimmy provides his multiple muses, the natural world and longtime collaborators, a chance to interact in myriad, often beautiful, ways. It is one of our Favorites of 2022.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Improv

Favorites 2022: Barre Phillips and ​​György Kurtág Jr. (Review)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barre Phillips and ​​György Kurtág Jr.

Face á Face 

ECM Records

 

Luminary avant-jazz bassist Barre Phillips and György Kurtág Jr., son of the well-known Hungarian composer and an electronic musician, join together on Face á Face. Kurtág uses a variety of synths, providing both pitched material and percussion to complement Phillips’ bass-playing. It might not be a pairing one would have readily thought of, even with Phillips’ long pedigree of collaborations, but Face á Face is a compelling recording. 

 

The album opener, “Beyond,” finds the two in a cat-and-mouse game, Kurtág beginning with oscillating seconds and then repeated pitches. Phillips responds initially with a melodic duet and then bends double stops. Chiming notes in the synths contrast Phillips’ low register melody on “The Under Zone.” “Two by Two” features sci-fi synths and combative percussion. Partway through, this gives way to Phillips, who plays repeated oscillations and harmonics in a hat tip to Kurtág’s textures. Low register double stops and minor seconds create a cavernous close. On “Across the Aisle,” both musicians play with material that combines non-pitched and pitched sounds, Phillips attacking various portions of his bass while Kurtág provides plinking gestures to offset bass harmonics. The piece begins and ends furiously with a more reserved development in between.

 

Every piece has a different sonic pedigree. Glissando bass lines and modular synth punctuations create intriguing blurring on the miniature “Algobench.” Double stopped bass notes and then repeated single tones are haloed by high register synth on “Chosen Spindle.” The synth part becomes more melodic and Phillips responds by taking on a grounding role with repeated octaves. Rather than concluding, the music seems to disappear. Arco playing and vibrating electronics, complete with cricket noises, are juxtaposed in the aptly named “Extended Circumstances.” “Bunch” has the players change roles, with Phillips making percussive sounds and Kurtág string-like glissandos. Phillips returns to harmonics, which are countered by a long, slow synthetic slide. On “Sharpen Your Eyes,” Phillips uses his bass as a drum and Kurtág engages in whistling noises. “Stand Alone” is a percussion duel with some bleeping to boot. The denouement is like a clock unwinding. 

 

Phillips moves closer to jazz with a swinging line on “Ruptured Air.” Not taking the bait, Kurtág supplies angular, sustained single notes as an avant rejoinder. This blending of styles provides one of the more fascinating colloquies on Face á Face. The recording closes with “Forest Shouts,” a miniature in which Phillips plays double stops and repeated dissonant intervals. Kurtág responds with a droid-like flute tune to bring the proceedings to an enigmatic close. Ingenious music-making: Face á Face is one of our favorites of 2022.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Improv, jazz

File Under Favorites 2022 – Matthew Shipp Trio

Matthew Shipp Trio

World Construct

ESP Disk’

Matthew Shipp, piano; Michael Bisio, bass; Newman Taylor Baker, drums

On World Construct, pianist Matthew Shipp is joined by bassist Michel Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker. Shipp has recorded with a plethora of current jazz performers. Each collaboration brings about different aspects of his playing and the ensemble vibe. 

 

A short prelude, “Tangible,” establishes the vibe here, with melodic interplay between piano and bass, and drums punctuating the action. “Sustained Contrast” demonstrates Shipp’s connection to the jazz tradition, with plaintive descending arpeggiations in a ballad context. This is counterweighted with low register chords, enigmatic in their tonality. 

 

“Spine” begins with fleet soloing from Bisio and angular voicings from Shipp. Baker joins with fills that complement Bisio. A repeated bass note and spiderweb melody signal a transitional moment, after which all three take a more forward-pressing demeanor. 

 

“Jazz Posture” is the first tune on which the trio stretches out. Clocking in at eight and a half minutes, it begins with the rhythm section setting down a furious groove. Shipp enters, playing runs throughout the piano’s range. Rhythm section alone and piano cadenzas alternate. Each time, Shipp consolidates his playing to a particular type of voicing, while still retaining florid runs. Finally, a drum solo breaks the pattern, and Baker lets loose a volley that rivals Shipp’s exertions earlier. At the very last Bisio joins, and they conclude quickly. 

 

“Beyond Understanding” takes on a mysterious cast, with shimmering cymbals, bass glissandos, and dissonant piano verticals. Shipp and company channel Crumb and Webern here. “Talk Power” is distinctive in the way that each instrument’s part goes its own way, yet the trio manages to lock these constituent fragments together. 

 

“Abandoned” arrives thunderously, all three explosively attacking their instruments. The piece is a chance for them to play with abandon throughout, recalling hard-blowing free jazz by progenitors such as David S. Ware and Cecil Taylor. There is an eye of the hurricane moment, with repeated passages played by both Shipp and Bisio. A shimmering coda lands as an utter, compelling surprise.

 

“A Mysterious State” moves the trio back into a swinging groove, with Bisio walking and swinging roulades from Shipp. Baker’s playing is interesting here. He often takes things double time and then slides back into the primary groove with syncopated fills. An insistent two-note melody ushers in a middle section, followed by more intricate chordal repetitions. Chords build thicker and thicker, until released into a post-bop inflected piano melody that once again morphs into a series of repetitions. Diminuendo of piano and drums leaves Bisio’s bass forefront at the close. Bisio reappears shortly, his showcased soloing on“Stop the World” haloed by sustained chords from Shipp. The bassist moves from glissandos to short melodic bursts to walking lines. “Sly Glance” features a suave post-bop tune, accompanied by splashy runs, vibrant drumming, and a bass ostinato. 

 

The title track closes the album with a ten-minute piece that is distinctive, even in comparison to Shipp’s many other large-form improvisations.  It begins with a solo in the pianist’s patented disjunct harmonic style, Bisio and Baker providing syncopated counterweights to Shipp’s emphatic accentuations. Like a wheel losing its tread, the groove periodically sheds its impetus and then leaps back upright. Locking together in a two-against-three pattern, followed by a Rite of Spring type bitonal ostinato, the piece erupts in a vibrant panoply of interlocking rhythms. With the rhythm section continuing apace, Shipp adds narrow-ranged melodies and an upper register repetition that again recalls Stravinsky, this time Petroushka. I’m sure these aren’t deliberate hat-tips, merely shared fluency. Heated piano soloing is added to the polymetric grid and Bisio lets loose as well, while Baker coordinates with the various layers, quite a feat in itself. A lovely denouement finds the group arriving at a new melody, and Bisio taking things out with a thrumming low E. 

 

World Construct demonstrates that Matthew Shipp is still full of surprises and as versatile as ever. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?

File Under Favorites 2022 – Olivia de Prato (CD Review

File Under Favorites 2022

Olivia de Prato

I.AM.

New World Records

Violinist Oliva de Prato is one of the stalwarts of the New York new music community, performing premieres with a plethora of organizations and in demand as a solo artist. Her latest recording for New World, I.AM. is a celebration of “Artistry and Motherhood.” De Prato, a mother herself, commissioned composers who are navigating motherhood and their careers. The project provides a nurturing, welcome perspective.

 

“Automatic Writing Mumbles of the Late Hours,” is by Natacha Diels, a composer and sound artist. The piece requires de Prato to trigger various electronics. The resultant sounds create shimmering textures in the upper register, while angular melodies accrete in the middle register. “Mycorrhiza I,” by Katherine Young, employs bow pressure and altissimo glissandos in alternation and accreting in intensity. Partway through, the music stops and resumes with transparency and sparer bow pressure A swath of pizzicatos, including pizzicato glissandos, are offset by bell-like repeated notes. Electronics adds a tolling drumbeat while the upper register materials are combined to create off-kilter swaths of detailed harmony.

 

Hang-Yang Kim’s “May You Dream of Rainbows in Magical Lands” is written in a just-intonation system called “Centaur.” Demonstrating the interval qualities, the piece focuses on sustained notes from electronics and violin. These stack up, creating held sonorities in which notes move in and out of the verticals. It is a beguiling, gradually transforming sound world and the blend of electronics and violin is beautifully presented. Little traces of found percussion, played by de Prato’s son, nibble at the edges of the pitch scape. 

 

Pamela Stickney is a composer and theremin player. She joins de Prato on “Noch Unbennant,” a piece developed by the duo from initial improvisations. Theremin and violin are a felicitous pairing, and alongside electronics, the duo explores a panoply of sounds in a labyrinthine formal design. “Fire in the Dark” began from vocal improvisations by its composer, Jen Baker, who then collaborated with de Prato to translate these into harmonics, bow pressure, and altissimo melodic patterns. This is succeeded by purely tuned sustained multi-stops, which gradually devolve, sliding away from the initial interval. After a pause, pianissimo skittering gestures provide an interruption before once again de Prato plays sustained glissandos. A brief coda of the same intervals articulated in short values closes the piece.

 

Zosha di Casti’s “The Dream Feed” opens with glassy electronics, percussive punctuations, and a duo between violin and piano. Thrumming bass notes and breathy sustained ones build alongside repeated passages from the violin, overdubbed with soprano register solos. These are offset by electronic percussion and glissandos. A high double stop, pressed even higher as it sustains, is accompanied by an aggressive bass register and percussion electronic passage. The electronics drop out and de Prato plays a mid-register modal melody, swathed in a piano ostinato. Sustained harmonics and repeated notes populate the upper register while the piano’s part becomes increasingly disjunct. A piano ostinato and blurring glissandos create a hazy atmosphere. Percussion, gruff electronics and another ostinato, this time ascending microtonally in the violin, bring the music out of its reverie and intensify the piece’s conclusion. A treble splash from the piano serves as a punctuation. 

 

A half dozen pieces, all in an experimental vein and hypervirtuosic in terms of demands, yet each distinct and compelling in their own right. De Prato remains an extraordinary advocate and here presents an imaginatively conceived and superlatively performed recording. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
File Under?, Obits

RIP Mimi Parker (Low)

 

Sequenza 21 mourns the loss of Mimi Parker, drummer and vocalist for the band Low. Parker had been diagnosed with cancer in 2020 and the band recently had to cancel performances as she was treated for her illness. 

 

Parker had an incomparable voice, well-matched to Low guitarist/vocalist Alan Sparhawk’s in harmony singing, and beautifully soaring in her lead vocals. As a drummer, Parker’s economical style became a signature of Low’s sound, and she was a role model for many female drummers who took up the sticks because of her example. 

Our condolences go out to Alan and all of Mimi’s loved ones.



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?

Tyondai Braxton – Telekinesis (CD Review)

Tyondai Braxton

Telekinesis

Nonesuch/New Amsterdam

 

Telekinesis is Tyondai Braxton’s largest piece to date.  It is inspired in part by the Japanese manga classic Akira, the story of a young boy’s discovery of his telekinetic powers and the disaster that ensues. Commissioned by the Southbank Centre in London and Musica Nova Helsinki Festival, Telekinesis is scored for electric guitars, orchestra, choir, and electronics. It is the latter that Braxton has thus far been associated with, but Telekinesis includes large sections of notated music, blending with the electronics to make thickly layered amalgams. 

 

The performers on the Nonesuch/New Amsterdam recording are the Metropolis Ensemble, conducted by Andrew Cyr, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus conducted by Dianne Berkun Menaker, and The Crossing conducted by Donald Nally. The coordination between these various forces and the electronics is superb. I am reminded of a performance by The Crossing of James Dillon’s Nine Rivers, where the choir held its own against formidable acoustic and electronic elements and created powerful chords built from intricate harmonies. The same is true of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, who are given challenging parts that bely their ages, yet turn in a superlative performance. The super-orchestra that is created by the various elements remains engaging throughout.

 

The piece is cast in four movements. “Overshare” begins with shimmering strings to which are added spooky synth arpeggiations and oscillating percussion. The way in which the ensemble is gradually incorporated to bolster the electronics sneaks up on you. Strummed harp imitates the rolled synth chords, brass adds to the vertical component, and insistent drumming provides forward momentum. Towards the end of the movement, disjunct melodies softly turn around sustained unisons with the harp and crescendoing brass filling out the frame. 

 

“Wavefolder” begins with insistent repeated tones in varying tempos, the electronics particularly pungent, brass building stalwart verticals and flutes imitating the soaring synth lines. Wordless choir joins the proceedings with sustained vowels. Dissonant strings and insistent synth lines compete with percussion for the foreground. The choir periodically adds wordless sustained chords. Flute solos imitate the lines from the first movement. There is a gradual denouement that imparts sounds of fetching delicacy. It ends with a surprising electronic punctuation.

 

“Floating Lake” starts hushed. A sudden interruption by the string figure and the “telekinetic” motive that appears in each movement muddy the waters only to have the music quickly return to placidity. This alternation reoccurs throughout the movement, the interruptions becoming longer and more emphatic. Phaser bleeps add a sci-fi cast to things. One senses that Akira is coming to a climax in this imaginary soundtrack. 

 

The final movement, “Overgrowth,” is an intense conclusion, employing every member of the forces in an ominous movement that presses forward with thrumming beats and dissonant verticals. The Crossing’s male singers respond in lower registers to the string chords and children’s choir. Bleak brass solos give the music a tragic cast. A new synth motive arrives about halfway through, providing a disjunct foil to the chords from the ensemble and choirs. Added to these are held bass notes and a martial pattern from the timpani. The synth theme is transferred to brass and low strings add another ostinato. The texture abruptly thins, and another wandering synth melody is presented. Soft brass chords are followed by a pause. Then pianissimo percussion leads the piece to its enigmatic conclusion.

 

An ambitious and imaginative piece, Telekinesis is Braxton at his best.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Nico Muhly – Alice Goodman – The Street (Favorites 2022)

Nico Muhly – Alice Goodman

The Street

Parker Ramsay, harp; Rosie Hilal, narration;

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Daniel Hyde, Director of Music

King’s College, Cambridge, 2xCD

The Street, Nico Muhly’s first collaboration with Alice Goodman, a librettist best known for her work with John Adams, presents a modern retelling of the Stations of the Cross. The first CD sets the mood for the drama to come, with performances of the Bach C-minor Partita No. 2 and the instrumental version of The Street by harpist Parker Ramsay. Ramsay is a gifted performer – his recordings include a fluent rendition of the Goldberg Variations. His interpretation of the partita revels in glissandos and ornaments, both befitting the harp. The Sinfonia displays luxurious rubato, while the Allemande, Courante, and Rondeau jubilantly dance. The isolation of polyphony is particularly clear in the Sarabande, and the Capriccio provides a virtuosic conclusion.

Playing a solo harp version of The Street, Ramsey brings out the pathos of the Stations of the Cross in a supple emotive performance. On its own, the harp is compelling and communicative; even more so as part of the full version which follows. 

Goodman’s text moves between ancient and contemporary voices who describe the barbarity of Jesus’s tormentors and the varied responses of the crowd and his followers. I found this distillation of a ritualized text at the core of Lenten observances as part of a modern discourse to be affecting. It describes the capacity for good and evil that the everyday person, meaning all of us, wrestle with today. Rosie Hilal’s narration is exquisitely enunciated, providing each of the stations with its own narrative resonance. Muhly’s incorporation of chant melody, performed by the Choir of King’s College, directed by Daniel Hyde, supplies a liturgical anchor that complements the instrumental and recited portions of the piece. The choir provides its customary sonorous delivery, allowing the chant lines to breathe and take on a gradual portentousness. 

Muhly began his musical career as a chorister and his affinity for liturgical music is on display here, as is his expert writing for the harp. It is one of the composer’s most compelling works to date. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Choral Arts Initiative – Jeffrey Derus – From Wilderness (CD Review)

Jeffrey Derus

From Wilderness – A Meditation on the Pacific Coast Trail

Choral Arts Initiative, Brandon Elliott, conductor; Kevin Mills, cello

Navona CD/DL

 

With From Wilderness, Jeffrey Derus has written a soaring and eclectic full length work for Choral Arts Initiative, an ensemble committed to new music with nearly twenty commissions and seventy premieres under their belts. Their previous recording, music of Dale Trumbore, supplied significant exposure for her laudable choral works. One imagines that From the Wilderness will do the same for Derus.

 

Derus has an intimate connection with the environs of the Pacific Coast Trail. He takes the listener on a musical journey that includes choral movements with cluster chord modal harmonies, meditative crystal singing bowl interludes associated with the chakras, solo turns as spirit animals by soprano Anna Kietzman, alto Genie Hossain, tenor Taylor Jacobs, baritone Kirk Averitt, and bass Timothy Cervenka, and powerful cello solos from Kevin Mills. Many composers juggling this many elements might make a less than compelling mashup of them. Derus instead highlights the pathway along his spiritual journey in a keen synthesis of these various elements. 

 

The composer doesn’t try to programmatically depict nature along the trail. His impressions and, more importantly, the cathartic response Derus has to journeying are the main topics of From Wilderness. The use of singing bowls is quite beautiful, creating clusters of harmony that presage the use of similar harmony in the voices. “Cajon Pass” is a case in point, with rich verticals and cascades of vocal overlap. Choral Arts Initiative performs with a powerful sound, strongly resonant from top to bottom. Mills plays a poignantly lyrical solo on “Sierras 1,” soon augmented by upper voices creating glinting shards of sound. There is then much interplay between cello and the upper and lower voices ricocheting back and forth. When all come together, with the cello playing in the altissimo register, it is a glorious sound. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Kirk Knuffke Trio (CD Review)

Kirk Knuffke Trio

Gravity Without Airs

Kirk Knuffke, cornet; Matthew Shipp, piano; Michael Bisio, bass

Tao Forms

Cornetist Kirk Knuffke plays his instrument with equal versatility to the more common trumpet, presenting a wide range of compass, dynamics, and articulations that leave his work continually fascinating. On Gravity Without Airs, a title taken from Marcus Aurelius, he joins with pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist Michael Bisio. Many of the compositions on the recording are Knuffke. The other pieces are spontaneous improvisations. There is a permeability between composed and improvised selections. Knuffke brought the music to the recording date without sharing it with his collaborators first. Reading from the stand provided inspiration for the subsequent free play, making Gravity Without Airs of a piece. 

The title track is an odyssey that reveals the simpatico nature of the trio. Knuffke unthreads long phrases of melody. Partway through, this is replaced by shorter motives that Shipp responds to in counterpoint. Soon things get fiery and move uptempo, with Bisio pressing forward with a walking line. Shipp supplies cascading descending chord progressions to counterbalance Knuffke’s flights aloft. A syncopated repeated chord provides a little bit of space before the descending progression is resumed, this time with Knuffke following Shipp’s suit and changing the direction of his own lines downward. Ostinatos from Bisio and Shipp provide accompaniment to altissimo playing from Knuffke, closing out the piece far away from its beginning. 

Another piece on which they stretch out is “Birds of Passage.” It has a dramatic opening, with Bisio playing glissandos, Shipp dissonant chords that at times near clusters, and Knuffke wailing in his upper register. His facility with sixteenth notes is impressive and his soloing moves in different tempo relationships to Bisio and Shipp. All of a sudden, the storm subsides to a single repeated note from Shipp, who shortly begins to create a slow, single line solo over spacious voicings. Knuffke rejoins, channeling the early jazz tradition of the cornet with flourishes that eventually move back into greater angularity. Shipp continues to develop repeated note ideas while Bisio explores smaller ranges of sliding tones. The trio moves downward, Bisio inhabiting the bass’s low register, Shipp creating whorls of harmony, and Knuffke eventually responding with a mysterious, lyrical solo. The piece ends with an enigmatic twist.

“Sun is Always Shining” takes the trio into more hard bop terrain. Knuffke plays keening lines over fifths and octaves repeated by Bisio and fluid countermelodies; tangy harmonies, and oscillations in the bass register are contributed by Shipp. “Another River” moves the trio away from bop to free playing with incisive attacks and angular overblowing from Knuffke eliciting adventurous playing from his colleagues. The group excels at intensity, but their ballads are sumptuous too. The slow sustain of “Paint Pale Silver” provides a miniature utterance akin to the Wandelweiser group. 

Knuffke, Shipp, and Bisio know each others’ playing well, and it shows on Gravity Without Airs. That said, they demonstrate that they still share musical terrain to explore. Recommended.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey