by S. Victor Aaron
After forty years in the business, ECM remains one of the busiest jazz labels around, and if anything, they’ve been picking up steam lately. That might be because they continue to bring on exciting new artists while continuing their amazing ability to retain so many of their more major acts for not just years, but decades. The fall season is usually a busy time for record companies wanting to boost sales for the holiday season and ECM is no exception. Since I’ve last written about a new ECM release less than three months ago, there have been maybe a half dozen more jazz releases from them, but space and time limitations require me to pick just three of them for investigation.
This trio of CD’s includes two of the marque’s cornerstone musicians, Jan Garbarek and Keith Jarrett, guys who are virtually synonymous with ECM. Garbarek first recorded for them only a year after the label got started and Jarrett’s long association began just another year later. Mixed in with these two giants is the relatively fresh faced Italian pianist Stefano Bollani who is no stranger to ECM because of his sideman role for yet another ECM stalwart and legend, the Italian trumpet great Enrico Rava.
All three of these fall into that famed “ECM aesthetic” which is hard to explain, but to paraphrase what that Supreme Court justic said about pornography, you know it when you hear it. One thing that can be said about the ECM sound is that it’s more diverse than you might think, as these three albums illustrate the contrasts in styles even as they all neatly fit into that ECM Sound:
Jan Garbarek Group Dresden
Jan Garbarek started out a little bit on the whack jazz side but has long settled into a Nordic folk/world fusion/new age-ish blend whose distinctiveness is only surpassed by his yearning yet clinical soprano or tenor sax. Together, these components virtually spawned the whole Scandinavian jazz sound and the Norwegian-born Garbarek remains its most important proponent. Dresden, out since September 22, brings this sound out of the sterile environs of Manfred Eicher’s studio and onto a stage one October night a couple of years ago in Dresden, Germany.
I really like the setup: a lean crack band consisting of Rainer Bruninghaus on keys, Yuri Daniel on bass (filling in for the then-ill Eberhard Weber) and Manu Katché on drums. Garbarek plays soprano and tenor saxes, as well as a selje flute. Secondly, Garbarek divided his repertoire fairly evenly among old originals, new originals and well-chosen covers. Garbarek’s one-of-a-kind playing is in fine form here, and the other musicians get their time in the sun too, each contributing a composition a piece that showcases their own performing abilities. Katché especially dazzles, with commanding percussion work that he rarely shows even on his own albums. Through a mixture of Norwegian folk songs and probing, modern melodies, Garbarek displays a finesse in distilling a varieties of styles into his unique imprint. The highlight is the epic performance of Milton Nascimento’s “Milagre Dos Peixes.”
Garbarek hadn’t recorded nearly as prolifically in the aughts as he had the prior three decades, but he ends this decade with the most essential Garbarek album in a long time. The double-disc Dresden is not a theme album, just an album themed on the essence of this major European artist. If you are curious about what makes Jan Garbarek such a key figure on the whole notion of blending European folk melodies with American jazz, this is a fine place to start exploring.
Keith Jarrett Testament Paris/London
In contrast to Garbarek, a live album is more the norm for Keith Jarrett than it is not. Even a live album of solo piano is nothing unusual for Jarrett, and to take it further, a live, solo piano album of improvised songs is not a novel idea for him, either; The Koln Concert (1975) in fact remains his most famous album and an all-time best seller for ECM. Testament Paris/London is another such live solo improvised album, but is a little bit distinguished by it’s sheer length: three discs chronicling Jarrett’s performances last year in Paris (one disc) and London (two discs), both of which occurred toward the end of 2008.
The tracks are labelled in a strictly logical way: the city it was performed in followed by a number indication sequence. It’s a little bit of a generalization to say this, but Jarrett seemed randier in Paris, playing with more abandon, and often leaving tonality behind. The first London disc contains those aspects in lesser doses, as well as more classical pieces, but ends with a beautiful ballad “London Part VI.” The second London disc is the most varied, ranging from funk to free, with some generous helpings of gospel (such as in the rousing “London Part XII). Slowly developing ostinatos, a hallmark of his solo improvised pieces, form the foundation of several tracks, most effectively on “London VII.”
Testament, out since October 6, marks a continuation of Jarrett’s striking tightrope walks without a net that began with his first ECM Facing You from 1971. While he doesn’t do this kind of high wire act quite as often as he used to, it remains an important part of his vast legacy that apparently, he is still capable of building upon.
Stefano Bollani Stone In The Water
Earlier this year we found Stefano Bollani in excellent company on Enrico Rava’s excellent New York Days. For his own Stone In The Water, he records with his “Dutch” trio for the first time on ECM. Jesper Bodilsen on double-bass and Morten Lund on drums round out a threesome spun off from a Rava combo who are very much in tune with each other, playing very melodic but thoughtful trio jazz not too unlike the kind Jarrett plays when he partners with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette.
Six of the nine selections were written either by Bollani or Bodilsen; they consistently form logically flowing melodies that have good foundations from which tightly woven group interplay and intelligent solos naturally develop. The rest of the tracks are covers that are far from overdone. Even the much-covered A.C. Jobim tune “Brigas Nunca Mais” sounds renewed in Bollani’s hands. All throughtout, Bollani modulates his solos with the temperament of the seasoned pro that he is; Bodilsen is a lyrical bassist in the Scott LaFaro tradition and Lund with his cymbal oriented shadings is the right drummer for this music.
Trio jazz music gets plenty of workouts, but it never gets old with me when it’s played so well. Stefano Bollani and his Dutch crew are meticulously reverent to this idiom in such an obvious way, you can’t help but to appreciate it. And the closer you listen to it, the more enjoyable the listen. Stone In The Water came out on October 27.
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