Recorded at Roulette, NYC, 2007
1. Improvisation One 31:18
2. Improvisation Two 27:20
3. Improvisation Three 12:12
Ellery Eskelin - tenor saxophone
Vincent Courtois - cello
Sylvie Courvoisier - piano
Showing posts with label Sylvie Courvoisier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sylvie Courvoisier. Show all posts
Monday, December 20, 2021
Ellery Eskelin - From the Archives: Ellery Eskelin & Sylvie Courvoisier - Live in Ukiah, 2005 (December 2021)
Penofin Jazz Festival, Ukiah California, 2005
1. Improvisation One 21:59
2. Improvisation Two 11:59
3. Improvisation Three 14:24
4. Improvisation Four 19:09
Ellery Eskelin - tenor saxophone
Sylvie Courvoisier - piano
Friday, October 29, 2021
Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson - Searching For The Disappeared Hour (October 29, 2021 Pyroclastic Records)
Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson combine their singular voices in startlingly inventive form on their second duo collaboration
Searching for the Disappeared Hour, due out October 29, 2021 via Pyroclastic Records, finds the two acclaimed artists exploring notions of time through evocative original compositions and thrilling improvisations
"[Courvoisier and Halvorson are] two of New York’s most idiosyncratic and distinctive improvisers... [Their debut recording] Crop Circles is deeply chamber-like in its deft, interactive intimacy."
– Peter Margasak, Downbeat
"This meeting of two of the brightest minds on the edgier side of jazz today produces music that’s astonishing both in its fluency and ceaseless ingenuity."
– S. Victor Aaron, Something Else!
To paraphrase the late Douglas Adams, “Time is an illusion. Pandemic time doubly so.” On their brilliant new duo album, Searching for the Disappeared Hour, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson make up for lost time with an hour’s worth of kaleidoscopic beauty and startling invention.
Due out October 29, 2021 via Pyroclastic Records, Searching for the Disappeared Hour marks the second collaboration for these two singular musicians. Their initial collaboration, 2017’s Crop Circles, was recorded after a single concert (at New York’s now-defunct Cornelia Street Café) and found them repurposing existing compositions for the duo context. By contrast, the music on Searching for the Disappeared Hour was composed expressly for the duo, taking stunning advantage of the chemistry and familiarity forged during tours of Europe and the States in the intervening years.
“I think this album is much more developed,” Courvoisier says. “When I wrote pieces for Mary, I really thought about all the possibilities of the guitar. And her music has pretty tonalities, great melodies and a very clear sense of harmony and melody, so I love to darken it.”
“We both have an affinity towards darkening things,” adds Halvorson, “which is great because you can start with a joyous melody and there's all kinds of room to mess with it. We're both really open to that. And Sylvie is great at adding harmonies and filling stuff in, so I was happy to leave space for her to do her thing, not only in the improvised sections but also within the written parts.”
Both Courvoisier and Halvorson are among the most idiosyncratic and distinctive voices in modern creative music, so a meeting between the two couldn’t help but venture into unexplored territory and return with thrillingly original results. With each new piece they revel in striking new ways of melding their sounds, utterly original yet very aware of the history of piano-guitar duos.
“People have this misconception that guitar and piano get in the way of each other,” Halvorson says, singling out the revered Bill Evans-Jim Hall album Undercurrent as a particularly strong refutation of that idea. “I've always personally enjoyed playing with pianists, and when you strip away everything else and have just the two instruments, I think they make a really great blend. There's such a wide sonic range you can achieve with that instrumentation."
The evidence reveals itself immediately with Halvorson’s bracing opener, “Golden Proportion.” A collage piece stitched together from scraps of ideas the guitarist had collected over time, it works like a roiling stream of consciousness as lines and notion bubble up and dissipate, from a wiry guitar line to a funhouse-mirror “Moonlight Sonata.”
“They're not even really ideas – they’re like little nuggets of beginning of ideas,” Halvorson explains. “I put them on top of each other in a patchwork and I would give one of them to guitar and one to piano. It’s just a little vignette where we play around with these ideas and then it all unravels.”
Courvoisier’s “Lulu’s Second Theorem” is a Schrödinger box of a composition, somehow both playful and complex – a notion vividly captured by the fact that its titular theorist is in fact the pianist’s cat. Halvorson penned the tense ballad “Faceless Smears” on the most dramatic day of Congressional hearings for now- Supreme Court Justice Brent Kavanaugh, along with the companion piece “Last-Minute Smears,” recorded with her band Code Girl on last year’s Artlessly Falling.
“Moonbow” is one benefactor of the duo’s shared experiences, drawing on a mistake during the recording of Crop Circles. Halvorson accidentally played a unison piece a half step off, but the “gnarly” sound that resulted excited both of them. Courvoisier seized on that approach when composing this slowly unfolding tune. Halvorson’s “Torrential,” while built on a folk-inspired guitar melody, opens itself for two extended solo improvisations.
“Mind Out of Time” and “The Disappearing Hour,” both written by Courvoisier, suggest the skewed relationship with time that we’ve all endured over this unusual year and a half. Likewise Halvorson’s “Bent Yellow” feels urgent and constantly shifting, while “Gates and Passes” suspends time as its graceful melody hangs portentously in the air, basking in breath and silence.
The album is completed by three improvised pieces: the stark and strident “Four-Point Play,” with Courvoisier exploring the interior of the piano; the lovely and meditative “Party Dress,” captured in a moment when the duo was unsure that they were even being recorded; and the concluding “Blizzard Rings,” alternately taut, pointillist and ethereal, seeming to dissolve into air as the hour draws to a close.
“Because of Covid, I think we’ve all had a weird relationship with time passing,” Courvoisier says, as Halvorson chimes in with her own interpretation of the album’s evocative title – vibrantly depicted in artist Dike Blair’s gouache images of clock in liminal spaces.
“A month would pass and I’d feel like no time had passed at al, or vice versa. It was very weird, and would leave you feeling disoriented all the time. At the same time, this album is almost exactly an hour long – so once you’ve listened to it an hour has disappeared.” Vanished, perhaps – but a well spent sixty minutes ripe with inspiring discoveries and inviting mysteries, elusive in the way it warps and transforms time.
1. Golden Proportion
2. Lulu's Second Theorem
3. Faceless Smears
4. Four-Point Play
5. Moonbow
6. Torrential
7. Mind Out Of Time
8. Party Dress
9. Bent Yellow
10. The Disappearing Hour
11. Gates & Passes
12. Blizzard Rings
Sylvie Courvoisier piano
Mary Halvorson guitar
Produced by David Breskin
Recorded by Ron Saint Germain & Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY June 2 & 3, 2021
Mixed by Ron Saint Germain at Saint’s Place, July 27 & 28, 2021
Mastered by Scott Hull, Masterdisk, Peekskill, NY
Album art: five gouaches by Dike Blair, courtesy the artist and Karma, New York City
Mary’s songs: 1,3,6, 9, 11 – Meltframe Music (BMI)
Sylvie’s songs: 2, 5, 7, 10 – Sylvie Courvoisier (SUISA, ASCAP)
Shared songs: 4,8,12
Album design and layout: Spottswood Erving and July Creek for Janky Defense
Monday, September 27, 2021
Ivo Perelman - Brass & Ivory Tales (Fundacja Słuchaj)
Great saxophonist, improviser Ivo Perelman celebrates its 60th birthday this year. Brass & Ivory tales - 9 CDs box-set is a gift for this phenomenal musician, great human being, and marvelous artist. Nine studio sessions with nine top and most creative pianists like Dave Burrell, Marilyn Crispell, Aruan Ortiz, Sylvie Courvoisier, Angelica Sanchez, Aaron Parks, Agusti Fernandez, Craig Taborn, and Vijay Iyer in a beautiful box with liner notes from Grammy Award Winner writer Neil Tesser
IVO PERELMAN - BRASS & IVORY TALES
CD 1: Tale One with Dave Burrell
CD 2: Tale Two with Marilyn Crispell
CD 3: Tale Three with Aruán Ortiz
CD 4: Tale Four with Aaron Parks
CD 5: Tale Five with Sylvie Courvoisier
CD 6: Tale Six with Agustí Fernández
CD 7: Tale Seven with Craig Taborn
CD 8: Tale Eight with Angelica Sanchez
CD 9: Tale Nine with Vijay Iyer
CD1: Tale One - Ivo Perelman with Dave Burrell
01. Chapter One 37.09
02. Chapter Two 20.02
Total Time: 57.11
Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Dave Burell – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Dave Burrell Lanikai Sounds Publ. Company (BMI)
Recorded January 2020
CD2: Tale Two – Ivo Perelman with Marilyn Crispell
1. Chapter One 6.56
2. Chapter Two 5.12
3. Chapter Three 7.46
4. Chapter Four 2.55
5. Chapter Five 5.23
6. Chapter Six 3.23
7. Chapter Seven 6.35
8. Chapter Eight 7.41
9. Chapter Nine 6.51
Total Time: 52.42
Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Marilyn Crispell – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Marilyn Crispell Crispell Publishing/BMI
Recorded March 2014
CD3: Tale Three – Ivo Perelman with Aruán Ortiz
1. Chapter One 9.25
2. Chapter Two 3.21
3. Chapter Three 4.02
4. Chapter Four 11.01
5. Chapter Five 10.36
6. Chapter Six 10.15
7. Chapter Seven 7.02
Total Time: 55.40
Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Aruán Ortiz – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Aruan Ortiz Naurazitro Music/SESAC
Recorded December 2017
CD4: Tale Four – Ivo Perelman with Aaron Parks
1. Chapter One 19.14
2. Chapter Two 10.16
3. Chapter Three 10.12
Total Time: 39.42
Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Aaron Parks – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Aaron Parks Invisible Cinema Music (BMI)
Recorded March 2020
CD5 Tale Five – Ivo Pereleman with Sylvie Courvoisier
1. Chapter One 3.32
2. Chapter Two 3.04
3. Chapter Three 5.04
4. Chapter Four 5.45
5. Chapter Five 4.33
6. Chapter Six 5.28
7. Chapter Seven 5.29
8. Chapter Eight 7.41
9. Chapter Nive 2.39
10. Chapter Ten 5.17
11. Chapter Eleven 5.55
Total Time: 54.26
Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Sylvie Courvoisier – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Sylvie Courvoisier Sylvie COURVOISIER MUSIC ASCAP 560146375
Recorded March 2018
CD6 Tale Six – Ivo Perelman with Agustí Fernández
1. Chapter One 8.45
2. Chapter Two 6.11
3. Chapter Three 8.28
4. Chapter Four 4.02
5. Chapter Five 5.28
6. Chapter Six 7.21
7. Chapter Seven 6.23
8. Chapter Eight 2.11
9. Chapter Nine 5.02
Total Time: 54.10
Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Agustí Fernández– piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Agustí Fernández SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores de España)
Recorded July 2017
CD7 Tale Seven – Ivo Perelman with Craig Taborn
1. Chapter One 26.20
2. Chapter Two 4.40
3. Chapter Three 5.22
4. Chapter Four 19.52
5. Chapter Five 8.37
Total Time: 65.01
Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Craig Taborn – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Craig Taborn LightMadeLighter Publishing BMI
Recorded June 2021
CD8 Tale Eight – Ivo Perelman with Angelica Sanchez
1. Chapter One 3.35
2. Chapter Two 3.04
3. Chapter Three 5.47
4. Chapter Four 7.40
5. Chapter Five 8.18
6. Chapter Six 8.33
7. Chapter Seven 6.38
8. Chapter Eight 7.45
9. Chapter Nine 9.51
Total Time: 61.29
Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Angelica Sanchez – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Angelica Sanchez Sancha Music/ Sesac
Recorded June 2021
CD9 Tale Nine – Ivo Perelman with Vijay Iyer
1. Chapter One 17.10
2. Chapter Two 3.36
3. Chapter Three 25.27
4. Chapter Four 14.26
5. Chapter Five 2.28
Total Time: 63.16
Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Vijay Iyer – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Vijay Iyer Sonocentric Publishing (ASCAP) administered by Kobalt Music
Recorded May 2021
Monday, April 19, 2021
Courvoisier | Rothenberg | Sartorius - Lockdown (April 19, 2021 clean feed records)
It’s not the first time we can hear Sylvie Courvoisier and Ned Rothenberg playing together. Both of them were included in a trio with Mark Feldman also released by Clean Feed (“In Cahoots”, 2017). That listening made us hope for more. Here it is with another trio, this time with drummer Julian Sartorius as the third contributor. Without a leader, and enlisting compositions from all the three members, this music reflects the present pandemic context, as the title, “Lockdown”, clearly suggests.
There’s a reflexive and introspective approach all along, with exquisite writing serving the collective improvisations and enabling lots of space for each musician to develop his/her own ideas. Sometimes it’s difficult to identify when the scores give place to spontaneity and vice-versa: the boundaries are always marked where we least expect, or the lines of separation (union, maybe?) aren’t clearly defined, everything coming in a very natural flux. The musical situations gain several dimensions, sometimes adopting a narrative, almost cinematographic character, and others choosing more textural, impressionistic, procedures, but mainly combining the emanations of those two polarities in different and surprising ways.
Convergence (for instance, the unisons between piano and sax (or bass clarinet, or shakuhachi) and divergence (the meticulous knittings provided by Sartorius are a good exemple) are constantly in equation, opening the possibilities for this endeavour that questions our innerselves and the strangeness of these days.
1. La Cigale 08:45
2. Outlander 12:50
3. Requiem d’un Songe 08:44
4. Deep Rabbit Hole 05:33
5. Quarantina 05:18
6. After Lunch 04:52
7. Popcorn 06:13
8. D’Agala 05:57
Sylvie Courvoisier Piano
Ned Rothenberg Alto Saxophone, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Shakuhachi
Julian Sartorius Drums, Percussion
Tracks 1,3 and 8 by Sylvie Courvoisier (SUISA/ASCAP) | track 2 by Ned Rothenberg (Thenro Music, ASCAP) | tracks 4,5,6 and 7 by Courvoisier/Rothenberg/Sartorius (SUISA/ASCAP)
Recorded 28-29, October, 2020 at The Zoo Studio, Bern, Switzerland by Wolfgang Zwiauer and Felix Wolf | Edited by Ned Rothenberg and Sylvie Courvoisier | Edited by Ned Rothenberg and Sylvie Courvoisier | Mixed by James Farber at Studio Bb, New York City | Mastered by Scott Hull at Masterdisk, Peekskill, New York
Produced by Sylvie Courvoisier, Ned Rothenberg and Julian Sartorius | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Photo by Sébastian Agnetti | Design by Travassos
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Nate Wooley - Mutual Aid Music (April 16, 2021)
Mutual Aid Has A History
It points to the concept of community action and the human drive to provide succor to our fellow humans. Mutual aid is the primary ethic of an anarchistic utopia in which each knows what they have, is honest about what they need, and is prepared to give and receive accordingly. Every human want is met by a commensurate surplus and all are lifted equally above suffering.
The music on this disc is, to a degree, about this political conception of mutual aid history but, rather than celebrating its primary act of what to give, it concentrates on the decision of how to give it. It asks the musicians to take stock of their gifts and to ask themselves, in each moment, how their use of that gift will affect the community (ensemble) of which they are currently a member. Will their addition provide:
1. A refined musical gesture that simply makes the group sound better
2. A raw idea that opens new sets of possibilities for the other musicians, or
3. The inspiration to others of making the difficult, selfless musical choice.
This set of eight ensemble concertos sprouts from a compositional system that asks musicians to question what they add to the ensemble as human beings first and musicians second. Rather than the traditional aim of faithfully reproducing a score through its mastery, the members of the ensemble are prompted to make decisions that purposely force the music away from facsimile and toward a spontaneity that may feel awkward and uncomfortable. Each supports each in the search for something new and interesting; a music that is not only greater than the compositional whole, but has the potential to recast the way we think about the balance of virtuosity and improvisational spirit in our practice. After all, if we, as an ensemble can enjoy jumping off musical cliffs together within the relative safety of this compositional system, then what’s to stop us from trying to find that same exhilaration in the other music we make?
1. Mutual Aid Music I
2. Mutual Aid Music II
3. Mutual Aid Music III
4. Mutual Aid Music IV
5. Mutual Aid Music I-I
6. Mutual Aid Music II-I
7. Mutual Aid Music III-I
8. Mutual Aid Music IV-I
Nate Wooley - Trumpet
Ingrid Laubrock - Sax
Joshua Modney - Violin
Mariel Roberts - Cello
Sylvie Courvoisier - Piano
Cory Smythe - Piano
Matt Moran - Vibraphone
Russell Greenberg - Vibraphone and Percussion
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Ken Vandermark, Nate Wooley, Sylvie Courvoisier and Tom Rainey - Noise Of Our Time (INTAKT RECORDS 2018)
It was only during Ken Vandermark's residency at the Jazz club
The Stone in January 2016 that Vandermark found himself in the
same vicinity as Nate Wooley, Sylvie Courvoisier and Tom Rainey.
A year later they went into the studio with nine compositions –
three each by Courvoisier, Vandermark and Wooley.
These four musicians have well-documented, distinct personalities
which, in this context, results in performances full of surprises,
rich contrasts and shared responsibilities. The music sounds
thoughtful, but never over-wrought. They play by in tuition, yet
retain a vivid complexity. Their composing is transparent and
un-clichéd; their improvising provided with a remarkable coherence
and openness. And perhaps it is exactly this – a fresh collective
unity that keeps their respective personalities and idiosyncrasies
intact – that brings them success in this bold and collaborative
performance. Art needs to pique and renew your interest, take
you on inspiring and surprising journeys and sometimes even
confront your own biases. Creating, not reviving as a way to
evolve and to keep going forward in all directions.
Ken Vandermark: Saxophone, Clarinet
Nate Wooley: Trumpet
Sylvie Courvoisier: Piano
Tom Rainey: Drums Percussion
1. Checkpoint 05:03
2. Track and Field 06:39
3. Sparks 03:44
4. The Space Between the Teeth 06:12
5. Tag 04:32
6. Songs of Innocence 04:17
7. VWCR 04:00
8. Truth Through Mass Individuation 04:03
9. Simple Cut 05:41
Recorded August 17, 2017, at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon,
New York, USA, by Ryan Streber.
Mixed and mastered by Ryan Streber.
Cover art and graphic design: Jonas Schoder.
Liner notes: Guy Peters.
Photos: Christophe Alary, Daniel Sheehan, Cristina Marx, Denis Dalby. Produced and published by Patrik Landolt, Intakt Records.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Sylvie Courvoisier Trio - D'Agala (INTAKT RECORDS January 19, 2018)
The nine pieces on D'AGALA are dedicated to people who admired and influenced Courvoisier. The title tune is for pianist Geri Allen, "one of three dedicatees who passed away as this June 2017 recording was in preparation – the others being guitarist John Abercrombie and French politician, women’s rights advocate and Holocaust survivor Simone Veil. Two pieces are for sculptors, Martin Puryear who merges organic and geometric forms, and Louise Bourgeois. On “Bourgeois’s Spiders,” Courvoisier is all over the piano – plucking or strumming strings inside, or playing with one hand inside and one on the keys, or rattling around on the metal frame. Sometimes the band sounds like a trio of percussionists; they’re that rhythmically acute", writes Kevin Whitehead in the liner notes and adds: "Some pianists approach the instrument like it’s a cathedral. Sylvie Courvoisier sometimes treats it like a playground".
1. IMPRINT DOUBLE – for Antoine Courvoisier 7:40
2. BOURGEOIS'S SPIDER – for Louise Bourgeois 7:32
3. ÉCLATS FOR ORNETTE – for Ornette Coleman 4:14
4. SIMONE – for Simone Veil 4:01
5. PIERINO PORCOSPINO – for Charlie 4:19
6. D'AGALA – for Geri Allen 8:13
7. CIRCUMBENT – for Martin Puryear 3:54
8. FLY WHISK – for Irène Schweizer 7:53
9. SOUTH SIDE RULES – for John Abercrombie 6:23
Soundsamples of this CD
(Player opens in new window)
Kenny Wollesen: Drums & Wollesonic
Drew Gress: Bass
All compositions by Sylvie Courvoiser (SUISA, ASCAP). Recorded June 22,2017, by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio, Mont Vernon, NY.
Mixed September 25, 2017, by James Farber at Sear Sound Studio, New York City.
Asst. engineer and editing: Owen Mulholland. Mastered by Scott Hull.
Cover art: Mario Del Curto. Graphic design: Jonas Schoder. Liner notes: Kevin Whitehead.
Photos: Frank Schindelbeck. Executive production by Florian Keller.
Produced by Mark Feldman, Sylvie Courvoisier and Intakt Records, Patrik Landolt.
Intakt CD 300 / 2018
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Nate Wooley - Battle Pieces 2 (CATALYTIC SOUND 2017)
“Battle Pieces 2” is just a several days ago released avant-garde jazz album which was released by “Catalytic Sound Records”. Album was recorded by a group of masterfull avant-garde jazz improvisers – Nate Wooley (trumpet), Sylvie Courvoisier (piano), Ingrid Laubrock (saxophone) and Matt Moran (vibraphone). These four musicians have original and essential playing and improvising style. They had been improvising with othr famous contemporary avant-garde jazz masters and released plenty of albums. Their music has essential, expressive and contrastic sound. Fast and expressive solos usually are the bursts of energy there are mixed various playing techniques and expressions. The musicians improvising is dynamic and constantly changing – sometimes it’s sharp, aggresive and provocative, sometimes – very peaceful, quiet and soft. Through the years of their musical career the musicians had created original and interesting playing style and their own sound. As a quartet they also had been improvising many times already and their improvisations usually gently combine together in one composition.
Album compositions have dynamic and interesting sound. All of them are based on avant-garde jazz elements – collective improvisations, unpredictable and dynamoic rhythmic, free form ans structure and very colorful musical pattern – these elements are just a part of compositions. Improvisations mood is always changing – from soft and calm it can suddenly turn out to live, energetic, evocative and expressive improvisations.
Wide range of sounds, timbres and moods create innovative sound of the compositions. These compositions have very low rhythmical and melodic basement. It’s based on various sound experiments, combinations of different playing techniques which expand the comfort zone of the instrument. All these musical techniques, unusual sounds, separate timbres, short melodic elements are essentially combined together in one musical pattern. The musical pattern is also based on soft harmony, dialogues between saxophone and trumpet are one of the most effective and interesting episodes of the compositions.
This album music have extraordinary sound and a calm, soft, quiet and subtle mood of mostly compositions.
01. Battle Pieces 4
02. Battle Pieces 5
03. Battle Pieces 6
04. Battle Pieces 7
Friday, January 27, 2017
Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson - Crop Circles (RELATIVE PITCH RECORDS 2016)
A mere two months following yet another highly thought-of ensemble record, guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson has returned with some stimulating one-on-one. In this latest such instance, Crop Circles (Relative Pitch) pits her against (or rather, with) Sylvie Courvoisier.
Halvorson has always thrived in a duo setting: Jessica Pavone, Noël Akchoté, Stephan Crump to name a few; Halvorson’s duets with the violinist Pavone even got her much of her initial notice some ten years ago. This time she goes toe-to-toe with a pianist who is likewise one of the most creatively distinctive women in avant-garde jazz.
The Swiss-born Courvoisier is the fairly rare highly trained musician who has been able to apply her ample skills toward developing a voice all her own. She leads or co-leads a number of mostly small ensembles that include Mark Feldman, Drew Gress, Marc Ribot, Kenny Wollesen and Ellery Eskelin. Numerous collaborations have involved John Zorn, Erik Friedlander, Herb Robertson, Enrico Rava and Evan Parker. Given hers and Halvorson’s predisposition for working with any musician who shares a zeal for crafting challenging scores and carrying them out in extemporaneous performances, it was perhaps only a matter of time before the paths of these two extraordinary women would cross.
That finally happened last year with an engagement at New York’s Cornelia Street Cafe, leading eight months later to a single day recording session at Courvoisier’s home studio. Each brought tunes and worked them out together and by the end of the day, ten tracks were in the can.
It’s a given that Crop Circles was going to be highly artful — and it is — but the affinity heard between the two is something that can’t be taught. The two often navigate across a tightrope of synchronicity, such as on “La Cigale,” where they erupt with clusters of notes with such density it sometimes seems that there are three or four of them playing, especially when Halvorson turns her guitar into a tornado-making machine. The unison, impossibly knotty avant-bop lines that forms the head are remindful of Lennie Tristano. The clipped notes on the brief “Water Scissors” is so synergistic and telepathic, there are practically four hands with one mind. “Eclats for Ornette” begins and ends with a precarious, harmolodic head that they somehow make it through in tight conformity. For “Downward Dog,” Courvoisier splits her brain with her right hand following the serpentine path of notes with Halvorson as her left hand effortlessly offers up the complementing chords.
Other performances are much more spacious but no less full of intrigue. The spare “Aftershock” sports subtleties like pairing the bass strings of the guitar with the left side of the piano and a symmetry that’s maintained through the slight mood adjustments. Halvorson is heard playing slide like no one else on “Woman In The Dunes” and later brandishes effects pedals as the two ride the song on swelling and receding tides of emotion.
With “Your Way,” the two demonstrate how pretty melodies have a place in avant-garde. Although it’s Halvorson’s song, Courvoisier immerses herself in it and totally inhabits it. Those wanting to hear Halvorson go crazy with her signature guitar effects need to look no further than “Absent Across Skies,” where she deploys them so effectively to add both jarring eccentricities and shape to Courvoisier’s dark, strange chord progression.
This meeting of two of the brightest minds on the edgier side of jazz today produces music that’s astonishing both in its fluency and ceaseless ingenuity. Crop Circles can be purchased directly from Relative Pitch Records here.
1. La Cigale ... SC 5:37
2. Aftershock ... MH 5:09
3. Eclats for Ornette ... SC 3:45
4. Absent Across Skies ... MH 7:08
5. Downward Dog ... SC 3:59
6. Your Way ... MH 4:50
7. Water Scissors ... MH 1:54
8. Woman in the Dunes ... SC 6:56
9. Double Vision ... MH 4:31
10. Bitter Apple ... SC + MH 2:23
Thursday, August 4, 2016
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