Myra Melford’s Fire & Water Quintet could undoubtedly be considered an all-star lineup of the more avant-garde side of contemporary jazz. Apart from the bandleader herself, who has exceptional authority as both a composer and performer, there are Mary Halvorson, Tomeka Reid and Ingrid Laubrock, musicians who play on an incredible number of albums and concerts and collect countless awards and recognitions for their work.
Only drummer Lesley Mok could be considered a name outside this critics’ “top-tier” circle, which in the context of the band as a whole could certainly be an advantage. Because when you have so many fantastic musicians in one place, there is a real possibility that your perception of the music shifts towards the joyful anticipation of hearing, for example, a “typical Mary Halvorson solo” or some sound characteristic of Tomeka Reid, and so on.
Fire & Water Quintet on their third album Sure Grand Out (RogueArt) is nevertheless far from a simple sum of its members. After a couple of listens to the album, I’m still making my way through Myra Melford’s “dense compositional fabric”, unable to reduce the album to a few “blurbs” or simple descriptions based on references. But I’m drawn into her layered musical world, which reveals itself again and again through intriguing themes and arrangements, and collaborative work in which the whole comes before individual egos and achievements.
This week’s special treat is the album From Such A Blue Sky / かくも青き空から, released by Midori Takada and Jakob Bro on Loveland Records, currently one of the few most exciting labels on the jazz scene and beyond.
Midori Takada plays percussion, piano and marimba, while Jakob Bro, besides his usual electric guitar, also plays acoustic guitar, which is a special treat for his longtime fans (like myself). Already from the instrumentation, it is clear that this is an album of minimalist expression in the broadest sense of the word. The two musicians nevertheless move through a wide spectrum of stylistic approaches, from more avant-garde passages to exceptionally warm, melodic and direct music. In all these musical journeys, Takada and Bro leave an impression of exceptional mutual understanding and something inherently human that goes beyond concepts and genres.
Several of my fellow critics have already written about Selva Oscura, the album by Polish cellist Julia Biłat, recently released on Relative Pitch Records. So I’m arriving “late to the party”, but this is also partly where the complex seductive quality of this work lies. This is not an “easy” album. Julia Biłat makes no concessions to the listener and directs her solo performance towards very “dark” areas of human emotionality. Her bow cuts and digs into our “emotional tissue” without mercy, and although she occasionally leaves drops of low notes that provide rhythmic accompaniment, we could say that she is “merciless” towards the listener.
This, of course, should be taken with a certain degree of reservation and conceptual distance; because sometimes we need to read a really difficult book, while a brutal horror film will occasionally give us “pleasure” even though in real life we don’t like the slaughter of people or mental torture. Biłat, therefore, takes us in her expression outside the area of conventional musical beauty, but at the same time manages to shake us up, rattle us, bring us into a state of mental concentration and ultimately be creative and emotionally potent in what sounds like hardcore avant-garde music.
Jazz Across Europe
A small part of the interesting global jazz scene is finally coming to my city. The Pančevo Jazz Festival takes place on the last weekend of October (October 29–31), and among my favorites are Bill Frisell Trio, Sylvie Courvoisier, Ned Rothenberg & Nasheet Waits, local heroes Eyot, and Isaiah Collier and The Chosen Few with a program bearing the indicative title A Love Supreme.
If I could single out something I particularly love about this festival, it would be its excellent 380-seat hall, which is just the right size for this kind of event; the sound is always very good, the audience is eager for good jazz and creates a great atmosphere, so I always have the feeling that something is happening that is a little more than simply the sum of good concerts.
I’ve also already written enough praise about Jazzfestival Saalfelden, and I’m particularly glad that ten years ago the same team launched “winter Saalfelden”, or the 3 Tages Jazz festival, which takes place in January and has a more modest concept, focusing on smaller ensembles and a smaller number of bands.
I’ve attended both the summer and winter festivals, and each has its own advantages: when we talk about 3 Tages Jazz, the charm lies in smaller halls and more intimate settings, a cozy mountain atmosphere, and the possibility of seeing all the shows without rushing around and potentially getting saturated with (too) many concerts.
The festival has announced its first four acts: Das Kapital, featuring one of my favorite saxophonists, Daniel Erdmann; Flora Geißelbrecht and Jelena Popržan (whom I wrote about when she performed with the Serbian band Fish in Oil); Henri Texier; and double bassist Helene Glüxam with her excellent solo project Nachtvogel, which I mentioned in one of my previous Randomizers.
And the lineup is still taking shape! The festival runs from January 22 to 24, and I’m sure there will be more great announcements soon.